


The Other Quentin Beck

by keepitmythy



Series: Unqualified Heroes [1]
Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Daredevil (TV), Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: (It's canon-compliant as of FFH), (Then takes a sharp left turn into AU), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Typical Violence, FFH Beck is a Bastard, Gen, Good Guy Quentin Beck, Peter has a few bad days, Post Far From Home, i just really like Mysterio ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-06-29 04:42:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19822768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keepitmythy/pseuds/keepitmythy
Summary: The first Quentin Beck, our villain,  which we shall call Quentin Beck Prime, as he is both the original to this dimension and derivative in his methods, lies dying on the Tower Bridge in London, killed by his own mad scheme, which hasn’t quite yet reached its conclusion.The other Quentin Beck, our hero, arrives one week later and lies, not dead but certainly not in prime condition (although much better than Prime’s condition), on the roof of a building in New York City.There are things that will differentiate him from Quentin Beck Prime that will become relevant in the days to come, but for now, one minute after his arrival, the only thing that differentiates Quentin Beck from Quentin Beck Prime is their relative states of being alive or not.AKA: one week after one Quentin Beck dies on the Tower Bridge in London, another arrives in New York City, and Peter finds out that his troubles aren't as over as he would wish they were.Edited as of 8/26/2018, when I realized the time skip between the end of FFH and its post credits scene was a week, not later that day as I had originally thought.





	1. Exits and Entrances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok look I really liked the concept of a heroic Mysterio, and while I knew his sudden but inevitable betrayal was coming I was still a little sad. So this is my take on several tropes/concepts including:  
> a) mistaken identity  
> b) the MCU multiverse  
> c) a continuation of Far From Home
> 
> I haven't written fanfiction in years, and obviously don't have FFH on my laptop to double check characterization. I have most of the story plotted out, and I intend to post once a week on Mondays. At the moment, it looks like it'll probably be somewhere around 9-10 chapters, running hopefully around 50k.  
>   
> All chapter titles brought to you by: Shakespeare quotes  
>   
> Edited as of 8/26/2019, when I realized that there was a more substantial time gap between the end of FFH and its post credits scene, which actually helps me make the timeline of a later story make sense. It doesn't change anything plot wise, I just needed to rewrite the first few paragraphs.

In an infinite multiverse, even the impossible becomes the simply unlikely. For instance, was it impossible that Quentin Beck, also known as Mysterio, could be a good guy? That he could have legitimate powers rather than hiding behind smoke and mirrors? That the Elementals were a legitimate threat, rather than an elaborate misdirection to allow one jilted ex-Stark Industries employee to get his hands on the most dangerous piece of technology in the world at the time?

Not impossible, but unlikely. And not the subject of this story, either. No, this story is a tale of what happens after the fact in one shard of possibility. This is the story of two Quentin Becks, both alike in dignity, in fair-

No, that's a different story entirely, but still serves to introduce our hero and villain. It should be easy to remember them, considering they share quite a bit in common.

The first, our villain, which we shall call Quentin Beck Prime, as he is both the original to this dimension and derivative in his methods, lies dying on the Tower Bridge in London, killed by his own mad scheme, which hasn’t quite yet reached its conclusion. Although Prime’s direct participation in this story may appear to have come to an end, the ramifications of his actions will cause no end of grief for our heroes.

Until, of course, the story comes to an end (as all stories must) and the grief does as well.

The other Quentin Beck, our hero, arrives one week later and lies, not dead but certainly not in prime condition (although much better than Prime’s condition), on the roof of a building in New York City. This Quentin Beck, unlike the one now dead in London, is a refugee from another dimension, a trained Sorcerer and veteran of the fight to save his world from the Elementals.

His battalion did, in fact, succeed, but he doesn’t know this yet, and won’t for some time.

For now, he lies, bruised and battered, his uniform dented and scratched and singed, helmet collapsed to reveal that this Quentin Beck is nearly identical to the one that has spent the last few days fooling the world into believing he was a hero.

And trying to kill Peter Parker and Co, of course. Can’t forget that little bit of villainy.

There are things that will differentiate him from Quentin Beck Prime that will become relevant in the days to come, but for now, one minute after his arrival, the only thing that differentiates Quentin Beck from Quentin Beck Prime is their relative states of being alive or not.

And although Quentin Beck, trained sorcerous soldier and dare I say it, Hero, may wish he were dead on that rooftop in New York City, his story on this stage is only just beginning.

-

Quentin Beck slept, uninterrupted, for nearly ten hours until someone noticed that he was on said roof, and woke him up with several nudges from a foot that began soft and tentative before metamorphosing into something just short of a proper kick meant to cause damage.

“Hey, man, like, wake up. I’m not sure what you’re supposed to do when a hero ends up dead on your rooftop so maybe don’t be dead? A live hero on my rooftop I can maybe deal with because you guys are supposed to be able to take care of yourselves, right? I guess you did manage to get out alive from London, which like, good for you man I’m kind of impressed to be honest, I’ve seen Spider-Man fight a couple times – well, only once in person, my friend Sam showed me a video she took of him taking out some bad guys on her walk home from work and showed me that so I guess that’s more personal than the YouTube videos-”

Quentin opened one eye, looking up at the person who had interrupted the longest stretch of sleep he’d gotten in years, and answered the torrent of words gushing out of the young woman standing above him with one inarticulate syllable of his own.

“Wha?”

The woman looked up from her phone and met his eyes in stunned silence for half a second before the gush of words continued. “Oh thank _fuck_ you’re alive because if you’re running from Spider-Man New York City is about the worst place you can go, although being on a New York City rooftop probably makes it worse than hiding out in a sewer or a building or something you know? Honestly I’m surprised he hasn’t seen you yet considering the Spidey-Finder app just pinged him a couple blocks away but he probably has more things on his mind now than just swinging around after you exposed him. I’m Liz, by the way. It’s short for Lizard. Do you want to come inside? I just took a first aid course so I might be able to help a little with those gashes on your face. Dunno how you got them with that helmet of yours but-”

“ _What?_ ” Quentin struggled from his prone position staring up at the tiny blonde woman who had put her phone away and was now offering him a hand to get up with. None of this made sense. He had met Spider-Man once, during a joint Sorcerer and Enhanced battalions operation while trying to prevent Fire from destroying New York City (they hadn’t entirely succeeded – Fire had been diminished enough for it to retreat until it popped up again in Prague a few days ago, but the city had all but been leveled), but he certainly didn’t know enough about the guy to expose anything about him. And New York had only recently begun rebuilding. A building like this definitely couldn’t have been built in that time.

He swiped a hand over his face (how had he gotten gashes on his face when he was wearing his helmet? That was a good question), then took the woman’s – Liz? – hand and accepted her help in slowly and shakily getting to his feet.

Liz seemed to have misinterpreted his last confused word as a comment about her name and continued speaking, “I kid I kid, it’s short for Elizabeth but no one calls me that. My apartment’s two floors down. We can take it nice and slow down the stairs – the elevator doesn’t go all the way up to the roof level. Probably some sort of building violation but it’s never exactly been an issue before. Hey, buddy. Mysterio, right? You ok?”

It seemed at the moment that Quentin wasn’t quite capable of forming complete sentences (and to be fair, the guy’s been through a lot), but to his credit, he managed to get more than one syllable out this time. “Name’s Beck”

“Beck?” Liz paused for confirmation (the first time she had not said more than one syllable), then began leading him towards the door, “Alright, Beck. I’ve got a first aid kit in my kitchen waiting for you, and I’ll get the pull-out bed from the sofa for you to lie down on. And once you’re feeling a little better we’ll get that armor off of you and see if you’ve got anything nastier going on than a nice cluster of bruises, scrapes, and burns, alright?”

With that, the two of them made it through the door of the roof and painfully slowly down the stairs. Liz’s apartment was small, clearly made for single occupancy, and she guided him over to a pleather armchair set up next to the window. Beck sat- although it was more like letting his legs go boneless and allow himself to collapse – and Liz began rummaging her way through the lower cabinets of her kitchen, returning with a small, white plastic box with a red cross label emblazoned on it and a plastic cup of water.

“Ok, are you more of an acetaminophen or ibuprofen man, Mister Beck?”

Beck fumbled with something on the side of his gauntlet, glancing up at Liz for a moment before returning to whatever the hell he was doing. “Both, please. Strongest dose… you… have!”

With that last word, he managed to find the activation button on the gauntlet, and with a screeching sound the armor definitely wasn’t supposed to be making, the majority of it collapsed into a gold and green watch on one wrist, and a red metal bracelet on the other. Liz watched in amazement as the process happened, leaving Beck clad in a grey shirt and dark pants, both padded to help the armor be more comfortable, and a sturdy pair of dark boots.

“The normal release button got jammed. Had to pop it out in order to get the damn armor off. Yes, thank you.” Beck took the offered meds from Liz, who stood in stunned silence for the first time since she had found him on the roof.

This silence, of course, didn’t exactly last too long as Liz began circling the chair he was in, ostensibly to check to see if he had any other wounds that had been hidden by the armor. Apparently satisfied by the lack of obvious wounds, she quickly walked over to the kitchen again, dragged a metal chair from the table screeching across the floor, turned it so it was backwards to Beck and sat, leaning her elbows on the back and her head in her hands before continuing the never ending stream of words that seemed to be her trademark.

“Ok, so I have so many questions. Do you want me to try to go chronologically in order of the events that spurred on the questions or just go in order of importance because some of them are like really quick and kind of dumb but some are super important like how did you escape from London and was that actually Spider-Man in Prague or is there really a European version of him called Night Monkey and what did you mean by he’s trying to be the next Tony Stark and won’t let any new heroes rise up because I know the Avengers are all kind of AWOL right now but there are tons of threats that even he couldn’t handle on his own and it struck me as odd that a sixteen year old would try to take on that mantle all by himself but it was on the news and if it was on the news it has to be true, right?” She paused, and when Beck didn’t give any immediate responses to those questions, she continued, “Right?”

Quentin took a long sip of water from the cup she had given him, contemplating his options. His magic was tapped, opening the portal out of London had taken more out of him than he had expected, and wherever he was now, he was having trouble touching the other dimensions that would normally fuel his magic.

Ok, one thing at a time. Magic later. Figure out what the hell was going on and where he was was first priority. He was pretty sure that whoever this Liz woman was, she wasn’t going to be a threat to him even without his magic and while his armor was repairing himself, but if Spider-Man was a bad guy (and sixteen? What? He knew that towards the end of the war against the Elementals both the Enhanced and Sorcerer battalions had been pulling in anyone willing and capable of fighting to save the planet, but sixteen seemed a little young. Maybe it was different here?) if Spider-Man was a bad guy that definitely wasn’t a fight he was ready for, or anywhere sure he could win.

“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions first?” He shifted in the chair slightly, groaning as even more bruises made themselves known, but managed to make it to a more upright position. “I think there may be some confusion here.”

Liz seemed taken aback, her head cocking to the side in confusion. “Uh, yeah, sure.” She peered a little closer at him, keeping eye contact for slightly longer than Quentin was completely comfortable with. “Hey, uh, do you think you have a concussion? I lost the penlight out of the kit otherwise I’d check and I don’t have, you know, the,” she snapped her fingers a few times looking for the right word, “ImPACT baseline tests for you from beforehand – if you ever did any of them, I suppose. Do superheroes do concussion baseline testing? I figure you guys probably heal faster than most people but head injuries are still no joke and you looked pretty rough in that video from the Bridge…” She trailed off as she realized that Quentin was looking at her with an expression of somewhat resigned patience, “Sorry. Everyone tells me I talk too much but it’s just that I have trouble filtering words out sometimes and you’re like, super famous at the moment so I’m also excited and-” She cut herself off again, “Right, sorry, ask away.”

Quentin considered which question would be the least likely to make it obvious that he had no idea what was going on, then realized that since he _had no idea what the hell was going on_ , it really didn’t matter where he started. “It’s fine. Look, I think there might…” He trailed off, deciding to play along with the concussion theory. Concussions can cause memory loss, right? If he played along and figured out what was going on maybe he’d be able to find someone that could help him out. “I think the concussion theory might have some merit. I’m having some trouble remembering details of what has happened over the past few days. Mind giving some context to your questions?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, sure. One sec-” Liz raised a finger at him before running into one of the other rooms in the apartment, bringing a laptop back with her, “No one really knows much about you, obviously, but the first time you popped up on YouTube was about a week and a half ago in Venice.”

Turning the laptop around, she waited while Quentin watched the few shaky cell-phone videos of the fight in Venice with water. Quentin frowned, his confusion growing. Water on his world had been defeated before he was recruited as a Sorcerer, and while it had attacked Venice, that was almost thirty years ago for him.

And there were other little things too that didn’t see quite right. The other Mysterio’s costume was close but not exactly right, Water looked similar to the archival footage he had seen on the news as a kid but not quite the same, and then there was the other Mysterio’s magic.

Namely, its color. Unless this Mysterio was the keeper of this world’s Time Stone (which he doubted, he had never been a strong enough of a Sorcerer for that kind of responsibility), there was no reason his magic should be green. His techniques were similar to what he had been taught, but there was none of Beck’s own practiced pragmatism in the battle. His movements were too wide, too showy.

Something was wrong.

Liz didn’t seem to be picking up on his confusion, though, and continued on, showing him the next video she had queued up. “Then a couple days later, you show up in Prague with Night Monkey – although I’d bet my laptop that that was actually Spider-Man.”

There were more things wrong in this video. Beck wasn’t sure what the other Mysterio had done to end the fight, he had never seen anyone wield magic like that before. And Fire itself – at that size, and after absorbing that much metal, it should have taken at least three, if not four other Sorcerers of Beck’s power level to take it down. It was smaller than the version of Fire that he had helped fight in New York City a few years ago, but even then he doubted that he could have taken it on with only an Enhanced for help.

Which did beg the question, “Where are the Sorcerers?”

Pulling the laptop away again and queuing up the final video from London, Liz looked up at him for a second before back at the screen. “The what?”

“You know, the…” Beck pulled at his last scraps of personal magic and conjured a small shield of glowing red-gold light. “People like me who do this. Why weren’t they fighting the Elementals. Why was I alone?” This video was certainly not how he remembered it. When he had fought it in Prague there had been him and a half dozen others by his side, and they had managed to contain it before it got out of hand. Something was very wrong here.

Liz tentatively reached out a finger and tapped the shield, and Beck let it collapse into sparkles. He really needed to figure out why he couldn’t tap into his normal source of magic. “Ok, that’s super cool, but I thought your magic was green?”

“No…” Beck shook his head as Liz turned the computer around one last time, revealing the video of London. “My magic isn’t green. And that…”

He trailed off as he watched the video, concern growing as the Elemental that had almost killed him less than a day before dissolved into holographic dust and revealed thousands of drones. “That’s definitely not what happened.”

With a shrug, Liz pulled back the laptop and began searching for one last video. “I mean, I guess you’d know better than anyone because you were there, but there’s tons of footage of the London attacks. I’m not saying I totally believe the ‘I sent the Elemental to another dimension,’ story for where it went because it pretty clearly wasn’t real there, but something definitely went weird there. And according to the internet Spider-Man and Iron Man were pretty close so it makes sense that if anyone would be able to get access to Stark tech Spider-Man would make sense… Hey man, you ok?”

Beck had stood up, almost in a daze, and began limping towards the door. “Thank you for your help but I need to go find Stark. He might know what’s going on…”

“That’s not funny.”

“What?” Beck turned back to see Liz had stood up, her arms crossed over her chest and a frown on her face.

“Are you from another dimension or do you just like being an asshole. No way a concussion scrambled your brains that badly.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Stark’s dead. Died saving the world. Come on, you’ve gotta know that? You said it yourself, Spider-Man wants to be the next Iron Man. Can’t be the next one if the first is still, you know, alive.” Her anger faded somewhat as she watched the growing confusion on Beck’s face, who limped back tp the chair and sat down.

“I don’t think this is a concussion. Another dimension…” Beck thought back to his last moments on the Tower Bridge, as the Elemental Fusion’s arm crashed through the structure and he hadn’t had time to focus on making a proper portal. “Anywhere but here…”

“What?”

“Anywhere but here, that’s what I focused on when I made the portal off the bridge. Where’s my-” Beck checked his hands, then patted down his clothing. “Was there a ring on the roof where you found me?”

“A ring?” Liz paused for a moment – she had been somewhat preoccupied with the maybe dead superhero on her roof to be terribly observant up there, but she didn’t remember seeing anything. “What kind of ring?”

Beck gestured the vague size and shape of the ring as he continued, “Two finger ring, rectangular piece on the top holding the rings together, made of metal, kind of beat up looking?”

“I don’t remember seeing anything like that, sorry.” Liz shrugged. “Was it important?”

“Oh, you know, a little…” Beck sighed and sank back into the armchair further. “Only way I can think of to get home. I think your quip about being from another dimension might be right.”

Liz sat down, her eyes wide as she stared at him. “Wait, other dimensions. They’re real?”

“Yes, it’s a-”

“That’s so cool!” Furiously typing on her laptop, Liz continued, “Not really my area of expertise, I’m an engineer, but I have a friend who’s doing his doctorate in physics and he’s love to hear about this-”

“Wait!” Beck reached out and grabbed her hand. “If I am being hunted by a superhero, maybe broadcasting the fact that I survived isn’t the best plan?”

“Oh no, you’re right, you’re right…” Liz trailed off and closed out of the email she was sending sadly. “Wait hold on,” her enthusiasm returned, “Is that Mysterio – the one who died, that’s not you?”

Beck shook his head. “No. The magic is a dead giveaway. I don’t know if that Mysterio is a Sorcerer, like me, or an Enhanced who just happens to wield something that looks like magic or something else entirely, but I can say with some certainty that he is, in fact, not me.”

“Ok, cool. Cool cool cool…” Liz stood up quickly, making her way back over to the kitchen. “I have a guy from another dimension in my living room. Cool cool cool cool… Hey, you want some coffee? I need some coffee. Maybe order some pizza or something. Have you ever had pizza before? I don’t know if pizza is one of those things that every dimension has. I’ll order some pizza.”

Beck carefully got to his feet and limped across the room, sitting down at a chair at the kitchen table. “Yes, thank you. To both. I have had pizza before. May I borrow your laptop?”

“Oh yeah, sure.” Liz flicked a distracted finger towards him as she poured coffee grounds into the machine. “The password is password. I know I should change it but…” She trailed off with a srug, setting the machine to run as she pulled out her phone and started ordering pizza.

Quentin logged in and ignored the final video that Liz had pulled up, opening a new tab and a word document to take notes in. It didn’t take him terribly long to start compiling a list of people on this world who might believe his story and be able to help.

Unfortunately, this two columned list of Good Choice to Contact vs Bad Choice/Dead/Can’t Find grew extremely unbalanced fairly quickly, and by the time Liz paid the delivery boy who dropped off the pizza a half hour later, the first column had one name in it: Clint Barton.

“You know Hawkeye?” Liz exclaimed, although with a mouth full of pizza it came out as sort of impossible to understand gibberish. Beck watched her for a moment as she swallowed and repeated herself before returning to his list.

“Is that what they call him here?” He gestured towards the second column, “Most of the people I knew on my Earth – knew well, that is – were sorcerers. And it seems like they keep a much lower profile here than back home. The only one I could confirm exists was Stephen Strange-”

“You know _Doctor Strange_?” Liz couldn’t help herself, although she winced slightly at Beck’s expression. “Sorry, sorry, continue.”

“As I was saying, the only sorcerer I could confirm that exists as a sorcerer on your Earth was Strange, but I’m not willing to go before the Sorcerer Supreme and ask for help. Not yet.” He continued tracing a finger down the second column. “Most of the other high-profile Enhanced I knew are either dead or haven’t been sighted in months, and the main compound is destroyed, so I can’t just show up there and hope there’s someone there who can help. The best option would have been Stark – he built the current model armor that my battalion wore, and that might convince him I’m from another dimension. But he is, as you said-”

“Dead.” Liz finished the sentence flatly and took another bite of pizza before shifting the box towards him. “Half sausage, half plain. Wasn’t sure what your type was, figured plain was safe but sausage is good.’

Beck carefully took a slice of plain, taking a few bites (god, he hadn’t had pizza in years, and hadn’t eaten in probably close to a day, this was amazing) before continuing. “Barton, on the other hand. He was one of the best lookouts I ever worked with before he retired to settle down with his family. I went to his farm, once, when I had some time off. And while I have no proof that he’s in the same place…” He shrugged and trailed off as he finished his slice of pizza. “Barton was one of the most level-headed people I’ve ever met. If anyone would be willing to give me a chance to explain myself before shooting, it would be him.”

“One problem.” Liz said, gesturing to the map that Beck had brought up. “That’s in Missouri. I’m happy to give you a place to stay to recuperate for a couple days, but how are you going to get out there.”

“Easy, I’ll…” Beck reached out a hand to begin conjuring a portal to the last location he knew Barton’s farm was on his own Earth before the issues in the plan made themselves known.

First was the absence of a sling ring from his left hand. The second was his still tapped magical energy.

“Ok, maybe not so easy.” He carefully got to his feet and started to make his way to the door. “Which way to the stairs?”

“Ok, hold on.” Liz put her food down and walked over to him, leaning against the door to block his way. “You’re in no condition to be going anywhere right now. Where are you going anyway?”

Beck winced as bruised ribs made themselves known. “The ring I described to you. It has to be on the roof somewhere. I can’t make portals without it.”

“Ok then.” Liz have Beck a slight push on the chest and guided him back to the table, where she supplied him a pad of paper and a pencil. “Sketch out what you’re looking for and I’ll see if I can find it, ok?”

The drawing wasn’t very good in the end, but in Beck’s defense he really wasn’t much of an artist. Nevertheless, by the time he had finished his third slice of pizza and second glass of water, Liz returned from the roof with the sling ring.

“Must’ve fallen off your hand when you arrived.” She placed it down on the table next to him, waiting as he shakily tucked it into a pocket. “No wonder I didn’t see it, though, it was under Mrs. O’Brian’s sunflower planter. Glad I found it, though. She’s pretty particular about people going near her plants.”

She leaned over, checking the status of the few visible wounds that Beck still sported. “Look, why don’t you at least say overnight. Whether you think Hawkeye will help you or not, going to meet him when you can barely stand isn’t going to help if it turns into a fight. I have a thing so I won’t be back until late, but you can sleep on the couch, recharge your batteries, and go in the morning.”

Beck considered arguing for a moment, but the dull ache of several dozen bruises spread out over his body convinced him otherwise, and he nodded. “Thank you.”

“Ah, it’s not problem. I’ve always wanted to meet a real superhero.” She gestured to the places he listed off, “My cell number is written on that pad on the fridge, the home phone is around here somewhere. Remote’s on top of the TV if you want to watch something, I don’t know what kind of entertainment you have on your world so there might be something interesting? Meds are still out on the counter, take what you need but don’t overdose, ok? I put in all this effort and I’d rather not come back to see you dead.” She checked her phone, frowned, and hurried back to the door. “I’ve gotta go, but I’ll be back around midnight, ok?”

Beck nodded, looking back at the computer screen. There were several other things that he wanted to figure out about this world.

-

Within an hour, Beck was pretty sure he had a handle on what had happened over the past few days on this Earth. That didn’t mean he was happy about it. When he had finally started watching the final video that Liz had queued, it took him far longer than it should have to get through it. There was something deeply unnerving about watching someone with his face and his voice say things on camera that he had never said.

There was also the fact that Beck was fairly certain this other Mysterio wasn’t what he claimed to be. The combination of the videos from London showing the Elemental dissolving into holograms and the way the other Beck acted – his movements chosen for flash and drama rather than the pragmatism Beck was used to fighting with – made Beck wonder if this other Mysterio wasn’t behind everything.

With that realization things started to fall into place. The wrong color of magic. The minimal forces it took to take out the Elementals. Even the final video – Beck wasn’t exactly sure what the other Mysterio’s endgame was, but it made sense that he would have contingencies to shift the blame off of himself and onto another easy target.

Although Beck was a little disgusted that a version of himself would be capable of doing such a shitty thing to a sixteen-year-old. He was sixteen himself when he was chosen to study as a Sorcerer. Honestly, he was impressed that this Peter Parker had accomplished as much as he had at such a young age.

But if Beck could figure out what was really going on, it wouldn’t be long until others did as well. That meant it was imperative that he got to Barton and explained himself before the news came out of what the other Mysterio had done.

-

Quentin Beck sat on the couch cross-legged, taking deep, steady breaths. He couldn’t go anywhere until he fixed his issues with drawing power from this dimension, but if he could get himself onto the astral plane, that might help.

In, out.

In, out.

 _Push_.

And while Beck’s physical body slumped into the couch, his astral form slowly stood up and took stock of his options. Here, the pain of the battle he had gone through faded away, and he could focus on feeling the threads of energy that filled the world around him.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

 _There_.

Quentin Beck reached out for the thread of energy that would give him the magic he needed to refill his personal store, and it filled him with all the light and joy that magic should be, almost untouched by the pain that the Elementals had tainted his own dimension’s magic with.

There was the proof that the other Mysterio was full of shit, at least. This dimension’s magic was still colored by the pain of its users (something terrible had happened here, he realized, just not the Elementals), but it was a different color, a different shade of grief and loss on a different, sudden scale, not the decades of misery and fear that had colored his own world’s magic.

And then he was back in his physical form, the pain of his injuries tamped down under the magic that buzzed through his veins like lightning. Beck carefully stood up – the injuries were still there, he knew, even if he was tapping into his own magic to hide the pain – and made his way over to the pad of paper Liz had left on the table.

_Liz, thank you for your help. I realized some things soon after you left that mean it may not be terribly safe for you to be harboring me. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. -Beck_

After a few moments, Beck added one more line. Liz seemed the type of person who’d want a hero’s autograph, even if the hero in question wasn’t actually a hero (or the same person she even thought he was).

On the next page, he added his signature in careful looping letters, followed by his old callsign, and the name this world knew him by.

_Mysterio._

With that done, Beck pulled on his sling ring and activated the armor. The nanites screeched in protest, but his armor seemed to be mostly intact, barring a few slashes in the cape and burn marks on the chest piece.

Eh, he’d had worse.

With the image of a farm in Missouri, Quentin Beck grasped the threads of magic and twisted.

The portal formed.

And Quentin Beck, not of this Earth and hoping for the best, stepped through.


	2. Best Safety Lies in Fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the real Stark cabin is somewhere in Georgia, for the sake of this, it is in New York within a reasonable driving distance of the Avengers Compound. I don’t know my geography of this area at all despite growing up in New England so we’re just gonna go with it, ok?
> 
> Also, I'm going to be without internet until Wednesday, so I thought it would be nice to just post this chapter a day early rather than two days late. Currently the work is plotted to eight chapters and an end credits tag/sequel hook, but I've been messing with my outline as I write, so we'll see where we end up. Next week's chapter has been written and I'm currently proofreading it, and I've begun writing chapter four. I'm hoping to get this whole thing written within the next couple weeks, and once the entire thing is written I'll be moving to a Monday/Thursday posting schedule.

All things considered, Peter Parker was doing pretty good. He’d saved the world, got the girl, beat the bad guy… Even gotten a surprisingly decent few nights of sleep in the week since he had gotten back to New York City, despite the nightmares.

Despite this, Peter Parker, child of the era of the Christmas Day _Christmas Story_ marathon, knew the following: sometimes in life, at the height of your revelries and when your joy is at its zenith, when all is most right with the world, the most unthinkable disasters can descend upon you.

In this case, the joy was MJ, the revelry was swinging her through the city, and the disaster was a thirty second news clip that played on every screen around him, forever exposing his identity (the one thing! The one thing that kept him safe!) to the public, who now looked up at him on the lamppost with confusion that was slowly metamorphosing to anger, and maybe even fear.\

"Spider-Man's name... Spider-Man's name is Peter Parker!"

How do you come back from that?

MJ met his eyes through the mask and mouthed, ‘go!’ complete with a hurried hand gesture as she turned on her heel and started making her way in the opposite direction.

Peter was frozen. The sudden barrage of questions, of noise, of people holding their cameras up to video Spider-man’s reaction to being unmasked. He was drowning in noise, in input. He was being crushed beneath a building, hit by a train, people who he thought he could trust were turning on him…

“Phone call from Aunt May. Should I reroute it to your heads-up display?”

The soft voice of Karen through his suit speakers was enough to snap Peter out of his daze. He had considered hooking the EDITH glasses up to his suit when he had a new one produced on the flight home, but something about the concept of letting the glasses be part of his everyday interactions with the world as Spider-Man was…

It was not good and if he let himself think too much about what had happened over the past few days (what had happened in the last few minutes, really) he would shut down like he did after-

No! Gotta keep moving, gotta get out of here… “Yeah, Karen, patch her through.”

Peter did a quick flip as he jumped off the lamp post, shooting out threads of webbing to get him close to the skyline. He wouldn’t be able to do the same sort of noticeable stunts he normally pulled, but if he stayed far up, he might be able to get back to where he dropped his clothes and get back to the apartment on foot without too many people noticing.

Although the question there really was whether people were more likely to try to mess with him as Peter Parker or as Spider-Man? It took Peter a few seconds to decide that Peter Parker had deniability as far as not being Peter Parker (or Spider-Man, for that matter) went, while running around in a red and black spider suit didn’t exactly do anything for anonymity.

“Oh my god, Peter, are you ok?” The worried voice of May Parker came over his headset, and Peter winced. One of the reasons he had tried to keep his identity secret was things like this, but to be honest, it was probably better that she had found out after the Homecoming dance rather than now. At least he knew she was on his side.

“Yeah, I’m fine, I’m heading home. Are you with Happy?” Peter had a plan. This one didn’t have six steps, it had a much simpler three: get home, pack a bag, get out of dodge before criminals (or worse, fans) came to his doorstep.

“Yeah, he and I were having a discussion-” Peter heard some hurried muttering in the background before May continued, “Happy says don’t come home. I’m grabbing some things from the apartment and we’ll meet you-” May cut off again as she had another hurried conversation with Happy in the background before Happy was the one to pick the phone back up.

“Peter, we’re going to pick you up and go somewhere safe. I’ll grab the Iron Spider suit, and anything else you need from your room, and we’ll meet you at these coordinates. Sending them to your suit now. There’s a helicopter there that Tony kept in case of emergency to get in and out of the city. Don’t worry about your stuff, stuff is replaceable.”

“Uh, yeah…” Peter changed course to go to the new set of coordinates, a tall building he could see on the horizon. “Oh! The glasses! The EDITH glasses! They’re in my top drawer. Everything else…” He thought about what remained of his Star Wars collectables that he hadn’t had to sell to pay for the Europe trip, trinkets he had picked up over time as Spider-man from thankful people, his computer, his framed picture with Tony… “And there’s a picture on my dresser. Those two things. Everything else… Everything else is replaceable.”

“Got it. We’ll meet you at the rendezvous point in fifteen minutes. Be safe, Peter.” The speakers clicked at the call ended, and Peter was left with only his thoughts and worries to focus on.

He managed to grab his bag from where he had left it on the way to the location Happy had given him, and spent the five minutes between his arrival and the arrival of Happy and May to do several important things on his phone.

First was to text Ned and MJ that he was ok, and getting out of the city for a little bit until the heat died down.

Ned’s response was a predictable, “Holy shit, man! You’re famous! Even Flash is backpedaling on how many times he called you a dickwad. Just be safe, ok?”

Whereas MJ’s was a curt, “I made it home safe, might get out of town for a couple days. You know that Beck still has people working for him that you didn’t take down, right? Better to split up the targets than all stay together and let them take us all out. Be safe.”

The second was to look at the news. His feed was exploding with articles, both about him as Peter Parker, and about him as Spider-Man. Quickly flipping through some of the more recent articles, he swallowed nervously. Everything that MJ had said when he tried to deny being Spider-Man on the bridge in Prague was coming out in these stories. The Washington Monument (yeah, Peter Parker was on a decathlon trip then!), the thing with the Stark plane and Coney Island (he was supposed to be at the dance and then just dipped five minutes after he arrived!), Venice (he disappeared right after the monster showed up, and that guy swinging around in the background with Mysterio sure does match what he was wearing that day!), Prague (he disappeared right before the opera started!)…

Peter had hoped his classmates might have some decorum as far as not spreading their thoughts on whether he was Spider-Man or not, but nearly half the articles coming out listed their tweets or other social media comments as sources.

This was not good at all. Ok, think about something else. Play some games.

Peter swallowed anxiously, looking down at the street to catch any sign of May’s car. He began flipping between mindless apps on his phone, trying desperately to keep his mind on anything other than the last week.

Clear a line in Tetris – illusory zombie Tony rising from his grave – switch apps.

Get a really nice cascade going in Bejeweled – the roof coming down on him during the fight with Vulture – switch apps.

Lose the game in Plague – _Maybe if you’d been better, Tony would still be alive!_ – close the phone, deep breaths…

Breathe, Peter, breathe. You’re safe now. Ish. At the very least, you’re not in imminent mortal danger.

_How can you know? Beck had accomplices, what if they’re coming for you and your friends now too?_

Think of something else! Elements of the periodic table- there’s hydrogen and helium and lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon everywhere, drones are flying through the air and-

“Peter!” Somewhere along this line of thinking he had curled up in a ball on the roof trying desperately to get a full breath in. May gently touched him on the shoulder and it was all he could do to not throw himself backwards and push her off with all of his considerable strength.

Instead, he only flinched violently away before finally managing to catch his breath, noticing Happy loading the last few things into the helicopter. The man gave him a concerned look before climbing into the cockpit and getting the vehicle up and running. May, however, remained crouched at his side, one hand gently on his shoulder. “Oh my god, Peter, are you alright?”

Peter took in a long shaky breath, nodding and slowly getting to his feet. He didn’t trust his voice to stay steady at the moment, instead climbing wordlessly into the closest seat to the door of the helicopter and quickly buckled himself in, still remaining somewhat crumpled in on himself. May frowned, concerned, but climbed in next to him.

-

The ride was not long, and apart from Happy trying to make conversation a few times within the first few minutes and May giving him a warning glare each time he tried it, it passed silently. Peter stared out the window the entire trip, doing things like counting cars on roads they passed and trying to figure out what type of trees were below until he realized where they were going.

“Hey, Happy? I don’t want to drag Pepper and Morgan into this mess. This is on me, not them, and I don’t want them getting hurt too…”

Peter trailed off as Happy shook his head with a slight smile. “Peter, they volunteered. Pepper is looking into using the Stark Industries lawyers and PR people to take a look at the video to see if they can directly prove that it’s edited, and she offered you and May a place to stay until this all blows over. So when we get there, just thank her and don’t try to play lone hero, ok? I think she and Morgan are actually looking forward to seeing you.”

Happy’s thought was proven true shortly thereafter as they landed on the front lawn, and Morgan came running out to greet Peter before the rotor blades had even stopped spinning. Peter was always amazed at how fast the had grown in the last eight months since he had seen her at the funeral, and as she attached herself to his legs in a hug that almost managed to knock him off balance, Peter managed to take his first full breath since the news story had come out.

-

Inside the house, Pepper offered Peter a mug of warm and calming tea before gesturing for him to take a seat on the couch. “I’m sure you’d rather talk about anything other than what just happened to you, Peter, but we need to make a plan. I’ll admit, I’m a little out of the loop on what happened in Europe. We’ve been keeping out distance from that life since-”

Since Tony died was the unspoken conclusion to that sentence, but Pepper took in a long breath and continued as if she hadn’t interrupted herself. “Tell me what happened in Europe.”

Half an hour, half a box of Kleenex, and two mugs of tea later, Peter finished the long and terrifying tale of what had transpired over the past week in Europe, from fighting the water monster in Venice, to meeting Beck the first time, to fighting the fire monster in Prague, to giving Beck the EDITH glasses, to him and MJ figuring out Beck’s plan, to the fake headquarters in Berlin, to being hit by a train…

May had made a small, terrified noise at that and gently patted his shoulder. Right, he had left that part out when telling May the story on the car ride home from the airport for that very reason.

The tale continued with the flight to London, the confrontation on the Tower Bridge, Beck’s death, and finally the news story that had spurred on their flight from New York City.

It was then that the next course of action made itself obvious to Peter, who fumbled with his cell phone and started dialing a number that he had only just been given. As it began to rang, he gestured towards it. “Fury’ll know what to do, right?”

The phone rang, and rang, and “You have reached the voicemail box of: Nicholas Fury. Please leave a message after the tone.”

Peter stared at the phone in something approaching astonishment before hanging up, then meeting Happy’s gaze. “Is Fury ghosting _me_ now?”

Happy shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll call you back. Fury doesn’t strike me as the type of guy who goes for petty revenge.”

That was a lie, of course. Fury was absolutely not above being extremely petty.

That didn’t mean Peter wasn’t worried. He put the phone back in his pocket, standing up and pacing back and forth and trying to figure out what to do next. He didn’t have to wait very long.

Pepper’s phone began buzzing, and she looked down at it in worried confusion. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Peter’s sixth sense was tingling. Something was wrong. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” Pepper swiped the readout from her phone to the holographic projectors in the home, gesturing to what had popped up. “The perimeter sensors went off, but there’s nothing on the cameras.” She moved to the window, peering out over the lake where a barely detectable ripple had formed, making its way towards the house. “Something’s not right.”

Peter joined her at the window and all his fear and anxiety was immediately replaced by a rush of adrenaline. “Mrs. Potts, do you have a bunker here?”

Her face creased with worry and confusion, Pepper looked down at Peter. “Tony renovated the basement to act as a bunker in case of emergency. Why?”

The hairs were standing up on the back of Peter’s neck and arms and he knew what was going to happen. “Second question, do you still have that suit you wore in the big battle against Thanos?”

Pepper rolled up her sleeves, revealing a matched set of blue and silver bangles on her wrists. “Peter, what’s going on?”

Peter was already in motion, pushing May and Morgan and Happy towards the door leaving down to the basement. “Beck’s team is probably still after the EDITH glasses.” He spared a glance out the window, counting the ripples on the lake. It didn’t look like they had sent more than half a dozen, but that was just the drones that were approaching from that angle. “He had drones before he got EDITH, it would make sense that they would send them to get the glasses again. Having a kid killed in broad daylight in New York City looks bad, but out here… Different story.” He handed the glasses case to Happy, and momentarily thanked his lucky stars that he hadn’t bothered to get changed out of his suit, but had only thrown on clothes over it on the helicopter ride here.

The ripples were getting closer now, almost at the shoreline, and Pepper had activated her own suit. Peter pulled off the t-shirt and shorts he had put on over the suit and pulled his mask over his head. The question here was whether the drones were tracking him or tracking the glasses. If they were tracking the glasses, then Peter hoped that his next stunt worked, and that the bunker below the house would block any signal coming from the glasses.

If they were tracking him, then that would be a slightly larger problem as they probably wouldn’t stop coming until he was dead, but he hoped that wouldn’t be an issue.

“Peter, I’m having FRIDAY cycle through the sensor frequencies she has access to to try to be able to see whatever is coming. Do you have a backup plan?” Pepper’s voice came over Peter’s suit comms as he began to walk towards the dock. He had a few seconds until the drones arrived, and he closed his eyes, trying to extend his senses out as far as they would go. The movements in the air, the ripples… He counted six making their way across the lake.

“Try having FRIDAY scan for air current disturbances or infrared signatures. The holographic illusion tech they use is really good, but I’d be there’s a weakness somewhere.” Peter stood on the dock, raising a pair of sunglasses that he had grabbed from a pile of Tony’s old things left on the dining room table in the cabin. Alright, Peter. Time to roll for deception.

“Hey!” The ripples stopped. Peter guessed that whoever was controlling the drones was at least a little curious in what he had to say. “You want these?”

Flickering to life out of a cloud of green mist that rose from the lake’s surface like fog was the one person Peter hoped he would never see again as the visage of Quentin Beck, in full costume but with the helmet down so the illusion could meet his eyes, held out a hand.

“You thought you killed me on that Bridge?” The illusion began, advancing forward on the water.

Not real not real not real – “Technically, you killed yourself, since the drone that shot you was under your command.” – yeah make a witty quip to get your nerves in order, good choice Peter. Even with that, though, Peter couldn’t stop himself from taking an involuntary half step back on the dock as the illusion stepped up before him.

“Come on, Peter.” The illusion’s head tipped sideways, a small, almost sad smile on his face. “You saw what you wanted to see. And since EDITH never really reverted to your control…” His smile turned into a wide grin as his hands raided into a shrug. “You saw what _I_ wanted you to see. I told you, Peter. These days, people will believe anything. And a superhero, rising from the grave? And bringing in the _hero,_ ” he said the last word with an ugly sneer contorting his grin, “that almost killed him? People will love it. And they’ll love me.” By this time, he was less than a foot in front of Peter, smile gone as he loomed over the shorter boy. “Now give me the glasses and I’ll leave you to deal with the damage I’ve already caused to your life and reputation, rather than causing any more.”

“Peter, I’ve got them. FRIDAY has a lock on six signatures.”

Peter didn’t react to Pepper’s comment, instead lowering the glasses from where he had raised them over his head. “You want these glasses?”

The illusion rolled its eyes, dramatically throwing up its hands as it turned away and then back from Peter in a big, theatrical gesture. “Yes, Peter, those glasses. Now give them to me before your life gets any worse.”

Peter met the illusion’s eyes dead on, then looked at each of the drone signatures marked on his HUD, turning his head to make it clear he knew where they were to whoever was operating them.

“No.” With one smooth move, Peter snapped the glasses into pieces with his enhanced strength, tossed the pieces into the lake, and shot out a web strand at the closest drone. The illusion of Mysterio shattered into green mist as the drones began to fire, but were stopped as they themselves were shattered into pieces by a series of pinpoint repulsor blasts fired by Pepper in her armor.

“Whoo!” Peter redirected his momentum from out onto the lake with a flip to land on the edge of the dock and punched the air. “It worked!” He quickly made his way back over to where Pepper stood as her armor began to collapse into the bangles again, holding a hand out for a high five that she gave him after a moment.

“Sensors aren’t picking up any more drones. What was that all about, Peter. I thought that man was dead?” She followed him as they walked back into the cabin. “And those were Stark tech drones, I remember Tony working on something similar years ago… Wait, where are you going?”

Peter was running towards the door of the basement already, pausing at the door. “Do you have like a small container that could block electrical signals… Like a small Faraday cage, or a big one of those RFID blocker wallets?”

Pepper only gave short shrug and a gesture towards the basement. “All of Tony’s old projects he worked on during the Blip are down there. There might be something like that?”

“Ok, cool. Come on.” He gestured to the basement for Pepper to follow him. “We need to discuss some stuff and I don’t want anyone listening in.”

-

As it turns out, there was a small, Faraday-cage-like case was in storage in the basement. Peter quickly put the glasses in, then closed and latched it and stuck it at the bottom of the pile of things.

“Peter, what was that. What’s going on?” May asked, worry written all over her face as she let go of Morgan so the young girl could attach herself to Pepper instead.

“Ok so, you know when I said that Beck was dead, and that I had control over EDITH again?”

“I don’t like where this is going, Peter.” Happy frowned, glancing over at the pile that Peter had put the case with the glasses under.

“I don’t either, Happy. The drones wanted the glasses, and they made an illusion of Beck to ask for them. And the illusion said that EDITH never actually reverted to my control, which makes sense because I had to directly transfer control to him in the first place, which means that when EDITH told me that all the illusions were down, that could have been the biggest illusion of all.” Peter nervously paced back and forth, the adults looking at him in confusion and worry. “So since we know that Beck’s crew still has access to at least some drones, and that their illusion technology is incredibly lifelike, I think we should all have a passphrase that we say in case one of us goes off alone or something so we always know that we are actually who we say we are.”

That suggestion got a few nods of agreement from the adults in the room, with Morgan looking on in interest and confusion. “It should be something simple, something that won’t be out of place, and something that we each have a couple variations of so that if the drones come back, they won’t pick up on it right away from watching us.” Peter finally sat down, his legs still shaking from adrenaline. “Any suggestions?”

There were, in fact, several suggestions that were passed around and shot down for being too difficult to remember or too obvious in normal conversation, until they finally came up with a decision. The second sentence in any conversation someone had with someone else, they would use the other person’s name. Didn’t matter what part of their name, could be their first or last or codename or nickname, but the name had to be there. If the name was used in the first sentence, or wasn’t used at all, that was when more drastic and embarrassing methods would be used to determine identity.

-

Later that night, after dinner cooked by May and Morgan, Peter sat down at the kitchen table and began to realise just how deep the shit he found himself in was. He quickly emailed Ned and MJ to check in on them and let them know what was happening, glad that he had installed that VPN before going on the Europe trip like MJ had suggested.

Then he let himself look at the bigger problems.

First, EDITH was compromised. With Beck dead (although that was a whole different problem), there was no way to reset the control back to him as far as he knew, and if he remembered the initial biometric scans correctly, the likelihood that a hologram would fool the glasses into thinking someone else was Beck was slim to none. Without control of EDITH, he had no access to the Stark satellites or control over the drones.

Of course, the attack on the cabin was kind of a good sign all things considered. It implied that with Beck’s helmet from the Tower Bridge broken and without the glasses, his collaborators also didn’t have access to EDITH beyond any last-minute commands that Beck had given.

Beck was another problem. He didn’t trust the word of an illusion further than he could throw it (which considering it’s a hologram and by definition cannot be touched, was exactly nowhere), but he couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that there was a possibility that Beck was still alive. With EDITH compromised, he had no reason to believe that there weren’t any illusions still active on the Bridge when he had asked.

But he had grabbed Beck! Stopped the bullet from going through his own skull!

And Beck was an actor. Peter groaned and buried his head in his hands. Beck had fooled Nick Fury of all people, it couldn’t be that hard to play dead in front of a distraught sixteen-year-old who hadn’t even actually asked EDITH if he was dead, just if it was real.

Damnit! How had he been so stupid. Peter stood, arms wrapped around his chest as he paced back and forth. Tony Stark had trusted him with the glasses, and now he was in a terrible situation that he wasn’t sure how he was going to get out of.

-

As it turns out, Peter Parker was right to be paranoid. Perched unbeknownst to the inhabitants of the house, in a tree not far from the front door sat the seventh drones, its cameras and microphones pointed at the cabin. Eventually, the kid would make a mistake. And when that happened, Quentin Beck’s Crew would swoop in and get the glasses.

Of course, what will actually happen is that this drone will significantly complicate everyone in this story’s lives, but will come to be the thing that allows Peter Parker and Co to come out on top in this game of shadows.

-

Meanwhile, at 177A Bleecker Street, Stephen Strange and Wong were relaxing after saving the dimension once again. No one could really blame them for not getting involved with the Elementals, considering that not only were they fake, but they were also not strictly a dimensional threat.

What was a potential dimensional threat was the lingering dimensional rift hovering over an apartment building some blocks away, which had apparently opened in their absence.

This is how one Elizabeth Maria Sherman of apartment 1363 came face to face with the Sorcerer Supreme. It was 1 am, and Liz sat on the roof of her apartment building staring out at the stars. Or, what passed for stars in New York City, which is to say the faint orange glow of city lights and the occasional plane that passed overhead.

Of course, this faint glow was outshone by a bright portal that opened up on the roof next to her.

“Are you sure this is where the portal opened up, Wong?” Strange looked down at his companion, whose bright golden seeking spell stayed lit up in front of him. “It just seems like there’s a significantly lower amount of destruction here than I was expecting to see from an interdimensional threat.”

Wong nodded, dismissing the threat. “This is where the portal opened. This roof is soaked in interdimensional energy. There’s a smaller trail that leads down a few floors, and it seems like that one,” he gestured towards Liz, who had shrunk down behind several potted plants and was attempting not to be seen, “May have had some interactions with whoever, or whatever came through the portal.”

“But she’s not the one who came through the portal.” Strange said, walking up to Liz and staring down imperiously at her, “Must not have been particularly dangerous, since this one doesn’t seem like she would have been able to put up much of a fight.”

“Hey!” Liz forgot she was hiding and her original hero worship (because this was _Doctor Strange_!), but the Sorcerers didn’t seem to care much about her indignation. Instead, Strange focused on making sure that the dimensional rift was well sealed and nothing else would go through in either direction.

Wong walked up to her, performed a short set of hand motions that cast a quick golden glow over Liz before fading. “No. She is certainly not from another dimension.”

Strange met Liz’s eyes, considering which path to take before deciding to take the most direct one. “Tell me…”

“Liz.”

“Tell me, Liz, have you seen anything unusual on this roof recently?”

Liz considered her options for a moment. Beck didn’t seem like he wanted to get involved with Doctor Strange yet, but his hesitation seemed more like he didn’t want to bother the man, rather than wanted to avoid him. On the other hand, this was Doctor _freaking_ Strange. She wasn’t sure what his powers were, exactly, but he also didn’t seem like the type of person you lied to.

“Define unusual.” Ok, maybe not the best choice of words, but decent choice to stall a little bit and let Liz figure out what exactly she wanted to do.

“Monsters. Strange people. Objects.” Wong regarded Liz coolly. “You came into contact with something. What did you see?”

Ok, stalling wasn’t going to work. “Yeah, a guy showed up on the roof around noon. Said his name was Beck. Said he was from another dimension. I don’t exactly know where he went, said he was a Sorcerer but wasn’t ready to go to you to for help.”

Strange nodded to Wong, who began to cast another portal back to the Sanctum to refine their search. A Sorcerer from another dimension could be a threat, and one who didn’t want to get involved with that dimension’s Sorcerer Supreme was somewhat suspicious. It would take time to track down one man who wasn’t trying to call attention to himself, but it was doable.

“Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.” Strange began to walk through the portal before he was stopped by a quick shout from Liz.

“Wait!” Strange looked back at Liz, who had pulled out a pad of paper from her pocket and offered it to Strange along with a pen. “Can I have an autograph?”

Strange met Wong’s eyes, who shrugged and let the portal snap shut behind him, leaving Strange behind on the roof. He sighed and took the pad and pencil, scratching out a wobbly ‘ _Doctor Strange,’_ his shaking hands causing the words to be even worse than his writing had been as a doctor. He gave Liz a final nod before opening a portal and stepping through himself.

Liz stood on the roof for several minutes after the portal snapped shut before filling the night with an excited shout. When had her life become so damn cool?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your kudos and comments mean so much to me, you have no idea. It's been a long time (like, almost eight years/haven't posted since high school on any site long time) since I've actually posted any fanfiction, and your support suggests that I've actually made the right choice in posting this, rather than starting it, abandoning it, and leaving it in my WIP folder for years.
> 
> Next Chapter Teaser:
> 
> Clint Barton had earned his codename. That being said, it didn’t take a Hawkeye to notice when a glowing golden portal started opening up on your front lawn in the middle of the day.


	3. Can the Devil Speak True?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline clarification: Chapter 2 starts approximately at the same time as Chapter 1. This chapter picks up directly after the end of Chapter 1, and will end just after the end of Chapter 2’s Doctor Strange tag. After this chapter, things will more or less proceed in a linear manner, unless it is specifically noted to be a flashback.

Clint Barton had earned his codename. That being said, it didn’t take a Hawkeye to notice when a glowing golden portal started opening up on your front lawn in the middle of the day. Clint knew that Strange didn’t know where his house was, and had specifically asked the other Avengers (what was left of them, anyway) to not spread the details of where the famous Hawkeye spent his days in retirement.

“Castle!” The otherwise relatively quiet house sprang into action at the calling of the most nerve-wracking word for the Barton family. Until recently, the Castle Protocol for the Barton family had consisted of everyone other than Clint making their way down into the basement and staying there until the danger had ended. These days, Lila helped out on the defense side of things, rather than being the one needing the defending, and she made her way up instead, using her bedroom window to survey the scene.

In the eight months since the final defeat of Thanos, the protocol had been called twice. Once was when an extremely lost couple had wandered into their driveway when their GPS had gotten turned around, and once was when a package arrived that the family hadn’t been expecting. In that case, it had turned out that Lila had ordered some things on Amazon and had simply forgotten to tell Clint.

Neither of these cases had been a real test of the purpose of the Castle protocol. A portal opening on the front lawn and a man Clint had only seen in news clips and a communique from Fury telling him to keep an eye out for Elemental activity a few weeks before staggering out was the type of thing the Protocol had been designed for.

So as he called it and pulled on his quiver and grabbed his arrow, the family continued as such: Laura brought Cooper and Nate down to the basement. Lila covered his back from her bedroom, her own archery skills recently having been deemed good enough by Clint to hit the enemy and not him.

Granted, her archery skills would have been considered to be Olympic level by anyone else, but Clint wanted to make sure that he was never going to be hit by accident.

As Clint made his way out by the front door, arrow nocked in the bow but not yet drawn and pointed at Beck’s heart, Beck stepped through. His helmet was down, hands in the air, and he let the portal collapse behind him.

“Clint Barton. I would prefer if you don’t shoot me.” Beck continued advancing, not breaking eye contact with Clint. “My name is Quentin Beck, and I need your help.”

“Oh yeah?” Clint carefully shifted his position, his bow trending up slightly as the arrow moved from pointing at the ground to solidly at Beck’s chest. Beck stopped moving after that, fingers twitching. “Did Fury tell you about me?”

“No, we met on my Earth in New York City. You were part of the support staff for my battalion for a joint taskforce operation several years ago. You retired after that. I visited you here once,” Beck gestured to the general area, “Nice place. Looks a little different on my Earth, you painted the shutters purple there. How’s the family? Can I put my arms down now because to be honest I’m pretty sore. The armor cushions a lot but even Stark tech armor can only do so much about getting thrown into a bridge.”

Clint’s bow continued to point at Beck’s chest but he nodded. “Ok, you can put your hands down. Keep ‘em where I can see ‘em, though.”

Beck slowly put his hands down, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t know what you’ve heard about me, but none of it is true. I’m not from your world, I ended up here by accident. And of all the people I knew from my time fighting threats against my world who also exist in this world, I thought you were the most likely to be willing to trust me. Or at least, give me a chance. You see things in people that others don’t.”

Clint actually flinched at that a little, his mind snapping to Natasha before he wrenched it back to the present standoff. “And what do you think I would see in you?”

“That I’m a decent person?” Beck took another step forward, “That I’m not the same Mysterio that you’ve seen on the news? I just want to get home. I thought you might be willing to help me get in a position that will help me get home.”

The bow didn’t waver from his chest. “And you thought the best way to get me to trust you was to show up unannounced at my home in full armor. After you claim Spider-Man, a good kid who fought just as hard as the rest of us against Thanos, is a villain? Nah, I don’t exactly trust that easy.” Clint began circling around Beck, who didn’t rise to the bait and turn with him. “Give me one good reason to believe that you’re not the Mysterio from TV.”

Beck slowly raised his hands, red-gold magic sparking at his fingertips. “Just promise me you won’t shoot me.” At a slight nod from Clint, he began weaving his normal pre-combat spells. The lighted panels on his chest piece glowed brighter as they helped channel the magic, and he slowly lifted up off the ground, his boots glowing with a faint red-gold light. He continued as Clint watched, his face betraying how impressed he was by the degree of magic that Beck commanded, setting up the two circular mandalas that would allow him to channel his destructive potential. He let off a single blast into the sky before letting the magic fade, dropping a few feet to the ground and wincing as the shock of impact reverberated through his already sore body.

“Tada?” He looked over at Clint with a slight shrug, red-gold magic still flickering at his fingers. “Different color of magic. And different style.”

The bow finally dropped slightly. Clint whistled through fingers, a short sharp sound that called Lila down from her perch in her room and down to the front porch. “Alright. Say I believe you. What exactly do you expect me to do?”

Beck rolled his shoulders, flexing his fingers as the last few sparks faded. The magic here came easier than it ever had at home, and it took more concentration than usual to close off the floodgates and stop channeling it. “Honestly, I was hoping that you would have an idea. You seem to be of the opinion that Spider-Man isn’t responsible for the mess. If your world’s ‘Mysterio,’” he said, making the air quote gestures, “was, then maybe I can help clear his name in exchange for help getting home. It’s not like I care about my reputation on this world if I won’t spend much time here.”

The bow finally went back on Clint’s back, and he nodded to the porch. “Sit there. I’m going to make some calls.”

Beck sat on the porch for close to twenty minutes as Clint went back inside with Lila. It was a long time to wait in uncomfortable armor, but he was glad to see that most of the damage that had been done during the fight in London to his chest piece had repaired itself, leaving only cosmetic damage that he’d have to physically take the armor off and clean it to fix.

The calls Clint made were short. The discussion with his family was not. Fury wasn’t responding, and while that wasn’t entirely unusual, it was annoying. The other calls he let ring twice before hanging up, remembering just how few of his friends were even on-world, much less available.

The family discussion was made long for the obvious points of, “Clint, it’s been eight months since you said we had you back for good, don’t go running off with someone who very much might be an actual supervillain,” countered by Clint’s “but I think he might be telling the truth, and if he can help Peter that might not be such a bad thing.”

Clint eventually won through sheer stubbornness. His next call was to one Pepper Potts. If anyone knew how to reach the kid, it was her.

This call also went through to voicemail. If you remember, at this point in our tale Pepper Potts is squaring off with several drones near a rather lovely lake. Specifically, an illusion of Quentin Beck is currently taunting our dear boy Peter Parker, and the drones are several minutes away from being blown up. It’s understandable that she wouldn’t take the call.

The family conversation continued for several minutes. Clint finally returned to the front porch, and sat next to Beck. “No one is returning my calls. You sure you didn’t have anything to do with anything?”

Beck rolled his eyes, gesturing at his beaten-up armor. “Although I have been through some battles recently, they are not the battles that you’re familiar with. Also, no phone. So definitely not interfering with your calls.”

“That’s fair.” Clint started scrolling through something on his phone before continuing to speak, “So how does your portal stuff work? If you’re not from this world, how were you able to get here?”

“Luck, mostly. Some bad, some good. Not sure what kind of luck got me on your Earth to begin with, but…” Beck shrugged, playing small sparks of magic between his fingers. “Getting here, specifically was good luck, though. I knew where your house was on my Earth, found a map of the area that had satellite images I could use to portal here. I can most easily portal to somewhere I’ve been before, but beyond that, images are best. I can’t portal to people or things, and descriptions are dangerous. If I hadn’t been lucky some random person would have lived here and I would’ve been back at square one as far as getting help.”

Clint offered Beck his phone, showing an image of a cabin on a lakeside. “I think there might be someone here who can help us. It’s also very well defended so if you are fucking with me-”

“I’m not.”

“Well, if you are,” Clint passed the phone to Beck to allow him to get a better look at the image, “You probably wouldn’t leave that area alive.”

Ok, that was a bit of an ominous comment for what looked like a simple cabin. There were some trees? Were trees dangerous on this world or something? Beck gave Clint a confused look, then went back to looking at the picture, feeling for the threads of magic that he could pull together to get from Missouri to wherever this location was. “Defended by what, exactly?”

Clint took the phone back, tapping out a message through text before putting it away. “Just in case you are fucking with me, I’d rather not say. Element of surprise might give its defenders the edge they need to – excuse me.”

His phone began buzzing in this pocket, and Clint looked down at it with some relief as the caller ID named one Pepper Potts as the one trying to contact him. Giving the universal ‘one sec’ motion, he walked out onto the lawn and answered the phone.

“Clint?” Clint frowned. Pepper seemed stressed and nervous, and while stressed was often her default when the Avengers had been involved in the past, in everyday life she was usually fairly calm and collected.

“Heya Pepper.” Clint paused in his pacing long enough to watch Beck, who was still sitting on the porch, playing with sparks of magic between his fingertips. “You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find Peter Parker, would you?”

The nervousness in Pepper’s voice was instantly replaced with suspicion. “Why would you want to know where to find Peter Parker?”

“Well, I might have someone who can help him out of the situation he’s in.” He glanced back over at Beck, who was absentmindedly rubbing at a scorch mark on his chest pieces with the edge of his cape, “I can’t really explain it over the phone. Are you up to having guests?”

There was a pause and some muffled conversation before Pepper replied. “When do you think you’ll be here?”

Clint smirked, walking back over the Beck. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes. See you soon, Pepper.”

“Twenty-” He ended the call before Pepper could ask any more questions. “Beck, you got anything to wear other than the armor? I want to make a good first impression.”

Wordlessly, Beck deactivated the armor to reveal the same underclothes that he had worn in Liz’s apartment, and Clint shook his head. “We’re going for nonthreatening here. The kid’s been through a lot, looking like a soldier isn’t going to help. Hold on.”

Clint ran back inside. He needed to grab his own armored overcoat, which easily slid on over his normal clothing, and he pulled another shirt from his closet, which he tossed to Beck as he exited his front door. “Put that on.”

Beck looked at the shirt, up to Clint, and back to the shirt. It was a light blue Hawaiian shirt, covered in white leaves and other floral designs. “Clint-”

“That was a Father’s Day present, you know. Lila thought I could use something to wear when I go golfing. Put it on, come on, nothing says non-threatening than floral prints.” As Beck continued to stall, Clint nudged him with his foot. “Put it on, Beck. Let’s go.”

“Fine.” Beck pulled it on over the grey undershirt causing Clint to roll his eyes (that’s not what he meant!) buttoned it up, and spread his arms out for inspection. “Good?”

Clint patted him on the back amiably and helped him to his feet. “Not what I had in mind, but it’ll work. Now, about that portal?”

-

Here is how Peter Parker neatly knocked out one Quentin Beck, interdimensional refugee and Sorcerous soldier.

Imagine, if you will, the front lawn of the Stark lakeside cabin. On the porch stands Team Parker – Happy sits on a swing with Morgan, Pepper stands next to them. May stands behind Peter, a hand on his shoulder, and Peter himself wears his Spider-Man costume, currently with the mask in his hand. He’s ready for a fight – he’s had minimal interactions with one Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye, in the past, and while Pepper may seem to think he can help, Peter isn’t taking any chances.

Queue music suitable for a super powered fight as the portal begins to open on the lawn. Something suitably brassy and dramatic for the moment.

Scratch that. We all know this is best scored to the Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams (Are Made of These).

The opening beat begins to play. The music swells as Hawkeye steps through, his quiver on his back and bow slung over the shoulder.

Then Quentin Beck, complete with ridiculous Hawaiian shirt and golden magic at his fingertips.

The portal closes. The first verse begins. And Peter _moves_.

Element of surprise indeed.

The mask goes on. Beck turns to the group on the porch after closing the portal behind him and gets thrown for a loop as the enhanced strength of a sixteen-year-old kid capable of catching a car gives him a mean right hook square across the jaw.

And by ‘thrown for a loop’ I do mean _thrown_ as Beck goes flying a good dozen feet back, catching himself at the last minute with a hastily cast flight spell.

“Oooh,” winces the crowd, and so does the music as the chorus plays. Clint shrugs and gives Beck a wink as he walks up to the porch.

“Hey Pepper. Hey Morgan. Happy, May. Nice to see you.” Clint leans up against the doorframe and watches the show as if it were the type of thing people would pay money for.

One night only! Watch as Spider-Man knocks out the interdimensional duplicate of the man who ruined his life! There will be blood! And after all, it was being recorded for someone’s viewing pleasure, even if our stars don’t yet know about it.

There was, in fact blood. By the time Beck had caught himself Peter was already on him again, webbing disrupting his flight pattern and preventing him from activating his armor.

Ok, he had fought in less dignified outfits than a Hawaiian shirt before. And he wasn’t going to be taken out by a sixteen-year-old.

_Hold your head up!_ Another punch to the face. _Keep your head up!_ Two kicks to the chest that knock Beck, dazed, into another tree.

The next set of attacks ( _Some of them want to abuse you!_ ) finally get caught by Beck’s shield, and this is the first time that Peter is taken by surprise.

Peter’s adrenaline fueled mind knows three things.

First, everything Beck did was illusions.

Second, this person was definitely a physical being, if the attacks he had been landing meant anything.

Three, that shield had been real, and not an illusion.

Conclusion? ( _Sweet dreams are made of this… Who am I to disagree?_ ). Higher tech illusions. Beck had said he wasn’t dead when he visited. Those illusions he had fought in Berlin had certainly felt real at the time. Something weird was going on, and the best way to get to the bottom of it was to knock the guy out and figure it out from there.

Clint was wishing he at brought popcorn. Always fun to watch other heroes at work.

_Everybody’s looking for something…_ Ok, clearly Beck was here to take the glasses back himself. And he’d upgraded his tech.

Peter could deal with that.

“Ricochet web!” A ball of webbing bounces off the tree behind Beck and hits him square in the back of the head. As Beck turns to see what hit him, Peter continues.

“Web grenade!” The shield is at the wrong angle to defend, and Beck finds his lower body encased on sticky netting.

“Taser webs!” The music reaches its finale and Beck jerks violently before he collapses bonelessly to the ground as a not insignificant amount of voltage courses through his body.

Peter stands over the unconscious body of the duplicate of his nemesis. Clint claps.

The battle is over, for now. A camera light blinks red as a drone prepares to send the footage back to its masters. They’re going to find this very interesting.

-

It took a few minutes for Peter to properly restrain Beck with webbing, removing the two pieces of technology his suit was contained in from the older man’s wrists before securing him to a chair in the Stark cabin’s basement. While Beck was unconscious, the questions were instead directed towards Clint.

Peter didn’t sense any drones in the area, but that didn’t mean that Beck hadn’t found some other way to fool him. Several awkward questions later, however, he was reasonably certain that Clint, at least was the real deal.

Which is why Peter was now in the basement, alone with no one but Beck and a camera streaming to the adults watching upstairs, waiting for the man who looked like the man who had caused him so much trouble to wake up. He comfortably perched on top of a table that was piled high with junk, staring down at Beck. As soon as he saw Beck start to stir, his focus snapped to the man. “Karen, activate enhanced interrogation mode.”

After that smackdown, Beck was back to one syllable comments as he blearily opened one eye, not yet focusing on anything. “Wha?”

“How did you survive the fight on the bridge?” Peter shifted his position on the table slightly to be ready in case Beck somehow managed to get out of the webbing holding him down.

Instead of answering, Beck struggled futilely against the webbing for a few seconds before giving up. Even his fingers had been individually webbed down to the armrests, preventing him from casting any of the spells that he normally would have attempted to use.

And his sling ring was gone again. Great.

Alright, he’d play ball with Spider-Man. This looked bad – he really hadn’t given him any reason to believe that he wasn’t the villain that the news seemed to think he was, given that he attacked Beck on sight, tied him up in the basement, and was now talking to him in a rather deep and threatening voice.

“Luck?” Beck flinched at Spider-Man made a move towards him, then continued, “No, really, I think it was just luck. The Elemental threw me into one of the walkways, and then as it came down for a final blow, I portaled out. Ended up on a roof in New York City.”

Peter leaned back slightly. That was the story that Clint had said Beck had given him. That didn’t mean that Peter believed it in the slightest. It was just too much of a coincidence for a Beck that was actually from another world to show up right after one that had pretended to be from another world ruined Peter’s life.

Then again, stranger things had happened in this world of heroes and monsters.

Peter pulled off his mask and noted that this Beck seemed to react with a small amount of surprise at seeing his face.

“You know, people kept telling me you’re sixteen, but I didn’t believe it. You really are very young to be involved with the hero business.” He sounded so sincere, but Peter wasn’t buying it. This was the same line that had gotten him into trouble in the first place, this faux concern about his age and the responsibilities that went with what he had decided to make of his life. Yet, as Beck continued, Peter found himself believing the concern in the other man’s voice in spite of himself. “When I was sixteen, Air attacked my home town. Tiny little place, no reason to attack it other than to cause destruction. I was so scared, but I knew the Sorcerers would come. And they did, an hour after the attack started.”

No. Don’t feel sympathy for this guy! Everything he says is a carefully crafted lie to make you feel sympathetic towards him!

Beck continued, “That was when they found out I had the talent to use magic, to be a Sorcerer myself one day. With my family and almost my entire town dead from the attack, they took me in, trained me…” He trailed off with a shrug that was almost imperceptible through the webbing binding him, “But even then I didn’t get put in a real combat position for another three years. To fight the way you do at sixteen…” He let out a low whistle. “Pretty impressive, Peter.”

Let him think his sob story is working. The fact that it is, in fact, kind of working will only help sell it.

“Let’s say I believe that you really are from another dimension, and that you’re not the same Quentin Beck that tried to kill me and my friends. What’s your goal here?” Peter jumped off the table to stand in front of Beck, arms crossed over his chest. “What do you want?”

“Honestly?” Beck met Peter’s eyes without a hint of hesitation. “I want to get home. I have a job to do, and I can’t do it here.”

“Oh right, because you’re a superhero?” Peter turned away, running his hands through his hair in frustration. “Have to go back and save the world?”

“Yes!” Beck was frustrated now. He understood Peter’s reservations, but this was getting ridiculous. “I’m not a hero, I’m a soldier. And my battalion needs me.”

“So you’re not here for these?” Peter decided to take a risk, pulling the EDITH glasses as Beck looked on in confusion. Outside, the drone sent another signal back to its masters: the EDITH glasses were still intact.

“Sunglasses?” Beck shook his head slightly, another barely noticeable shrug beneath the webbing. “Not really my style. Why would I go through all this trouble for a pair of sunglasses?”

Peter carefully put the glasses away and back into the signal blocking case. “Maybe because they’re the main connection to the most powerful surveillance system in the world, and give the owner access to thousands of Stark technology drones? You seemed to think it was pretty important when you decided to try to kill me and my friends for it a few days ago.”

Well. That was quite the revelation for Beck, but instead of letting the confusion get to him he found himself getting annoyed instead. “Look, I know that your Earth’s version of me caused you some serious issues. That wasn’t me. I genuinely want to go home, I don’t want to give you any trouble, and Clint thought you might be able to help me in exchange for me repairing your reputation.”

Now that was an interesting consideration. While Peter wasn’t exactly sure what he could do to help this Beck if he was from another dimension (maybe take a look at the design for the quantum tunnel that Bruce had told him about in the days after the battle, get in touch with Scott Lang… Was he actually considering helping this guy?) but an offer to repair his reputation wasn’t one that he could take lightly. He knew Pepper had people on trying to prove that the video was faked, but he doubted that they’d find anything.

The glasses came out again, and Peter held them up in front of Beck. “Can you return control of these back to me?”

Beck twitched a finger slightly, the best he could do to gesture to his current predicament. “I’m tied to a chair, what do you expect me to do? You have the glasses.”

Time to take a chance. Peter carefully approached and placed the glasses on Beck’s face, where the lenses lit up blue as they scanned his biometrics to confirm his identity.

“Hello again, Quentin.” The voice of EDITH played quietly in Beck’s ear and he flinched slightly, looking up at Peter. “How can I help you today?”

“Yeah, hi there. I’d like to transfer control back to Peter Parker.” Peter was looking at Beck with an expectant expression on his face and made the ‘go on’ gesture with his hand.

“Certainly, Quentin. To transfer my control out of my network, please confirm with your chosen passphrase, and reboot the network connection you wired me to.”

Ok, that wasn’t good. “One moment, dear.” Quentin looked up at Peter. “Take them off.”

Peter did so, closing them again in the case. “Well?”

“Well, it seems like your Beck was clever. Apparently, he locked in his control over the glasses with some sort of control phrase, as well as connecting them to a network that needs to be rebooted to remove control.” Beck shrugged again, this time realizing that the webbing had started to loosen around him. “I can start trying with the passphrase if you want to leave the glasses on me. I’m not going anywhere.”

Peter considered it for a moment. If he left Beck in the basement with the glasses, he wouldn’t be able to go anywhere, but there wouldn’t be anything stopping him from calling in another drone strike on the house. And yet, he found himself warming to the guy. Unless there were many more layers to his plan than Peter was aware of (And thinking back to Berlin, the layers and layers and layers of illusions) it didn’t make sense for Beck to taunt him about being alive with drones and then appear out of thin air two hours later with a different style of magic and no drones anywhere that Peter could sense.

One chance. Give him one chance, twenty minutes alone to prove himself. Peter carefully put the glasses back on Beck’s face, swallowing hard to keep the panic away at the face that stared back at him (oh god he still looks like Tony but also he looks like the man who just tried to kill me and my friends I got hit by a _train_ because of this man what am I doing?) and nodded curtly. “I’m going to go upstairs. You have twenty minutes to try to figure out what the passphrase is while I talk to my friends about what we’re going to do with you.”

With that, Peter carefully walked (not run, never run away, your enemies will just chase you… or is that dogs or wolves or bears or something? He might’ve heard that on a documentary at some point) back up the stairs, leaving Quentin alone with the glasses, webbed to the chair.

That last condition didn’t take long. As soon as Peter close the door, Quentin began struggling in earnest. The webbing finally loosened enough around his hands that he could send a surge of energy through the strands holding him down, burning enough away that he could pull himself the rest of the way out by hand.

He carefully stood up, taking stock of his current situation. His armor was gone, Peter or someone else had taken the nanite carrier watch and bracelet away from him. His sling ring was similarly gone, which meant no portalling out. He was still wearing the stupid Hawaiian shirt over his under armor, the light blue somewhat marred by dirt and a few drips of blood. He rubbed his face with his hands, wincing at the dried blood crusted under his nose and the gash on his cheekbone that had opened back up, and got to work.

The glasses’ light blue overlay filled Beck’s field of view with several very interesting things. There was an update counter in the corner with the number of drones he currently had access to. It seemed like only a few dozen were currently active, but the total number – well over a thousand, marked as ‘in storage,’ must have been what attacked London in this world.

What caught Beck’s eye after that was the blinking light of a call waiting indicator. It took him a few tries to figure out how to work it before a video link finally popped up, an unfamiliar to Beck face on the other side of the call.

“Quentin?” Beck took a moment before responding. He had never seen the older, balding man before in his life, and really hoped that he wouldn’t say anything too incriminating to show he wasn’t whoever this guy was expecting.

“Yeah, that’s me.” Beck responded, already using EDITH’s database to try to figure out who this guy was.

“Wow.” William Ginter Riva leaned back in his chair, surprise, delight, and something like fear playing across his face. “Ok, well then. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you survived, and we followed your instructions to the letter. How did you get your hands on the glasses?”

Beck decided to take a chance. Putting everything together, he assumed that the other Beck and his crew had faked the attacks somehow, and if he could get to this guy, maybe he could get to wherever the system he needed to reboot was. “It’s a long story. I need access to the system that you connected EDITH to, I have some new ideas.”

Riva nodded. “When the drone picked you up entering the Stark house, we were all amazed. You didn’t look too good in that fight with Spider-Man, but then again, none of us could ever really put up much of a fight against him. We’re sending in a dozen drones to give you a chance to get out of there. Try to get outside and away from the house and sit tight, they should be there in a little under...” He checked the time on something off screen, “Eight hours. See you seen, boss. We’ll make people see that Mysterio is the truth once again!”

With that, the call ended, and Beck pulled the glasses off his face. That wasn’t good. Having a dozen drones attack the house of people who didn’t trust him as far as they could throw him (which if Spider-Man was in that group that expression might start to break done, considering the kid could throw him pretty far) didn’t look good.

Time for a new plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, well, I said I'd be moving to a Monday/Thursday update schedule once I finished writing the piece. Well, this is an update on Thursday, and with ~45k words this is officially the longest thing I've ever written. I have some plans for more works in this series, so we'll see where it goes. As always, thank you for your kudos and your comments, they really mean a lot to me.
> 
> Teaser: Chapter 4 - The Sands are Number'd  
> A lot can change in twenty minutes, as Peter Parker would come to realize after Beck ran up the stairs, glasses still on, worry written all across his face. “They’re coming for me!” Beck stopped, one arm wrapped across his chest to try to somehow lessen the pain from his bruised (and now rebruised, thanks to Peter) ribs, the other hand gesturing wildly in the air. “Someone – the glasses said his name was William? – he called me on the glasses. Says he’s sending drones, that they’d be coming to extract me from,” he gestured to the assembled group, “all of you.”


	4. The Sands are Number'd

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes the Hawaiian shirt is a reference to _that_ Hawaiian shirt. As for the comment about magic being easier in this universe, well. You'll just have to wait and find out, won't you?

A lot can change in twenty minutes, as Peter Parker would come to realize after Beck ran up the stairs, glasses still on, worry written all across his face. “They’re coming for me!” Beck stopped, one arm wrapped across his chest to try to somehow lessen the pain from his bruised (and now rebruised, thanks to Peter) ribs, the other hand gesturing wildly in the air. “Someone – the glasses said his name was William? – he called me on the glasses. Says he’s sending drones, that they’d be coming to extract me from,” he gestured to the assembled group, “all of you.”

The silence after that statement stretched on for far longer than was comfortable until it was finally broken. Clint, the ever practical, pulled his quiver back on from where he had left it by the door and entered agent mode. “How long do we have?”

“Ahhh…” Beck paused, slumping into a chair and making another vague gesture with one hand, “About eight hours? The glasses are showing the drones’ progress. I don’t think they can control the Stark drones without the glasses, but about a dozen are currently flying over the Atlantic towards us.”

“The perimeter sensors are calibrated to see the drones now, but if the first attack fails they’ll just send more,” Pepper offered, pulling up a map of the property from the holograms built into the dining room table. “Clint, we’re going to need backup if we’re going to hold out for any amount of time.”

Clint nodded, mind racing with plans. Half were being discarded immediately due to missing pieces, but some… “I have some ideas. Happy, how are you doing with contacting people?”

Happy gestured to a list with half the names currently crossed out. “Most of the people we could normally count on are incommunicado. Probably why Mysterio-” he broke off, making eye contact with Beck before looking away quickly, “-this world’s Beck acted when he did – no offense, Beck. I know Peter wanted me to call Scott to see if he could help with the dimensional wormhole issue, he was next on my list.”

Beck shrugged. “Wasn’t me, no offense taken.”

“I have an idea. What if we let the drones take Beck?”

The whole room turned to Peter in confusion, Beck included. “Let them take me?”

Peter nodded. “You need to reset the system, right? Let’s say we manage to get in contact with Mister Lang. We give you back your gear, he goes with you to ensure that you don’t just immediately betray us. He helps you infiltrate the other Beck’s crew, you use them to figure out what the passphrase was, then portal out and back to us once you reset the system. Maybe you even manage to get them to say something incriminating on camera to fix my issues. Him and the Van Dynes are probably the only ones other than Mister Banner left who know anything about other dimensions, and he isn’t answering his phone.”

“Shhh, it’s ringing.” Happy gestured to the rest of the group to be quiet. “Pick up pick up pick up…”

“Ex-Con Security, Scott Lang speaking. How can I help you feel more secure today?” The room relaxed somewhat as the voice of Scott Lang came over the speaker of the phone.

“Scott? It’s Happy Hogan.”

There was a pause and some noise on the other side of the line as Scott presumably got up from his desk and moved somewhere more secure. “Oh, yeah, hi! What can I do for you?”

“Scott, we need your help. Are you in contact with Hope, Hank, and Janet?”

“Uh, yeah.” Scott paused, and some muffled discussion could be heard before he continued. “I haven’t seen Janet or Hank in a bit, but Hope’s here now. Why?”

Happy was about to try to explain before shaking his head and handing the phone over to Peter. “Mister Lang? We need your help, both as Ant-Man and as an engineer. Do you think you and Ms. Van Dyne could rebuild the Quantum Tunnel from Tony’s notes, but for alternate dimensions?”

That caused a longer pause before Hope’s voice came over the phone instead. “I would imagine something like that would be possible, but it would take resources we don’t have. Where are you?”

Peter looked over at Beck, who had just finished putting the gear that Peter had taken from him back on, then back at nothing in particular. “We’ll come to you. How soon can you be ready?”

-

Luis had seen a lot of weird things since that heist at Hank Pym’s house. He had seen even more weird things (on the news, mostly, aliens seemed to like attacking New York City a lot more than San Francisco) in the past few years. Nothing prepared him for a glowing golden portal opening up in the middle of the office.

It was a quick experience, though. Hope and Scott were already waiting for the portal to open, suits on and gear in hand, and as it opened to a strange new world, they walked through. Luis watched as it closed behind them, then got back to work. Security systems weren’t going to consult themselves.

-

Scott found himself at something of a loss for words as he stepped through the portal onto the front porch of the Stark cabin. He hadn’t been back since the funeral (hadn’t been on the eastern seaboard since the funeral, really. Business was booming now that people were back from the Blip, moving into new homes, upgrading security after experiencing looting during the five years…), and an involuntary shiver ran down his spine as he took a look over the lake that served as Tony’s ashes’ final resting place.

Despite all of Hank’s warnings, he had found himself warming to the guy during the building of the Quantum Tunnel. Maybe Hank’s issues had been with Tony’s father- Tony himself seemed to have enough issues with the elder Stark, but Scott regretted not having had a chance to really get to know the man.

His reminiscing was cut short by him noticing who exactly he was dealing with. When the portal had opened up in his office, both he and Hope (who was giving the assembled crowd the same critical look) had assumed that Doctor Strange was somehow involved in all of this, which would have made sense.

Seeing Peter and May was surprising at first, but not after he had a moment to realize that after the news story there weren’t many other places they could go if it wasn’t true. The really surprising thing (which stayed surprising even as Scott tried to rationalize it) was the figure sitting on the porch swing behind the assembled crowd of Peter and May and Pepper and Happy and Morgan.

Because sitting there bruised and tired looking in a dirty and bloodstained Hawaiian shirt over a grey undershirt and black pants sat (unrestrained!) was the one who had accused Peter in the first place. That was Mysterio. What in all the hells was going on?

Hope was the one to snap out of her confusion first, moving forward while Scott stayed motionless and trying to process the scene. “We’re going to need a place to work. I have all of our tools,” she tapped a case at her side, which held an entire miniaturized engineering kit and a new version of the Quantum Tunnel from the van, “but I’m going to need both space to work, and some way to target the dimension you’re trying to reach.”

“Use me.” Beck slowly stood up from the back of the group, coming forward with his hands tightly clasped behind his back. “I only know a little of dimensional theory, but I do know that a being from another dimension will give off a different quantum signature than the natives of the dimension they find themselves in.”

Hope looked him up and down quickly. “You’re from another dimension.”

It wasn’t a question.

Nodding, Beck summarized the scenario that had led him here. “I suspect that the death of an Elemental on my Earth weakened the boundaries between planes enough for an unspecific portal creation would cause one to travel between dimensions as well as between two points in space. While we don’t have anything like that kind of energy here at our disposal, the rift might still be open enough that a targeted quantum tunnel could let me back through.”

“I see.” Hope wasn’t convinced, and Scott finally picked up on the thread of the conversation enough to participate as well.

“Hold on. Just… hold on.” He gestured to himself and Hope, who were wearing their suits as well as carrying their gear. “Happy, on the phone, you said you needed us both as engineers and as heroes. This seems like a task for an engineer. What’s the task for a hero?”

“Maybe we should take this back inside,” Beck turned and walked back towards the door of the cabin, turning back to the rest of the group. “Are you coming?”

Once everyone was situated, the story began. “This Earth’s Beck was the one responsible for the attacks on Venice, Prague, and London.” Peter used the hologram generator in the dining room table to call up footage from the attacks to show his points. “None of us knew it at the time, and he had us all completely fooled with his honorable soldier routine.”

Avoiding Beck’s eyes, which were currently focused on Peter with an uncomfortable intensity, he continued, “I had been given EDITH with the note, ‘For the next Tony Stark, I trust you.’ I didn’t was the responsibility that came with them at the time, so I interpreted the note in such a way to believe that it was telling me to choose his successor. I willingly handed EDITH over to him.”

“Later that night,” Peter pulled up a holographic representation of the projector that MJ had found, “My friend – well, girlfriend? I think? – my friend MJ showed me this. It’s a projector from one of the drones. It activated, and we realized that all of the attacks were fake, and I had really messed up. I tried to go to Fury, but it was a trap by Beck to make me tell him who else knew. Then I got hit by a train, ended up in the Netherlands, and Happy flew me to London.”

“I confronted Beck on the Tower Bridge. He got shot by one of his own drones, I got the glasses back, and he died, or at least, I think he died, on the bridge. Flew home, things were going great, and then… This happened.” Peter let the news clip play, taking careful note of how Beck no longer seemed willing to meet his eyes, seemingly entirely engrossed in picking at some dried blood caught underneath a nail.

“Hold on,” Scott interjected, gesturing towards Beck. “If he did all that stuff, why are we helping him? And you said he died?” He gestured more emphatically. “Not dead!”

“It wasn’t me.” The response was quiet as Beck continued looking down at his hands and not meeting anyone’s eyes. He didn’t realize the full extent of what his doppelganger had done to the poor kid. “I fought in the Battle of London on my own Earth. I was out of the fight, my suit shot, magic drained, on the bridge. As the Elemental died, it started crushing the area I was hiding in. I had just enough magic to portal out, albeit ending up here rather than a safe house on my own world.”

He finally looked up, a very serious expression on his face. “What do you think my endgame is, if I’m lying? Why would I come to the person I had just very publicly antagonized and ask for help if I wasn’t serious, if I didn’t think he might be capable?”

There was a long pause before Hope spoke up. “Distraction.”

Beck’s eyes snapped to hers in confusion. “What?”

“Playing devil’s advocate here. I don’t know you, I don’t trust you. But consider: you just fought with someone who beat you even through all of your technology. You prayed on his kindness before. What’s different now? Apparently, despite all you did to him, you have him trusting you enough that he’s willing to try to send you home, and give you access to the glasses you tried to kill him over.” She nodded to the glasses, which were currently folded up and hung over Beck’s shirt collar. “All hypothetical, of course, you all still haven’t told us what you needed us suited up for?”

“I get it.” Beck looked back down at his hands, his voice still quiet. “Believe me, I get it. I’ve been a soldier for twenty years. The Elementals have killed my friends, my family, nearly my entire planet. And if one that I had just defeated showed up on my doorstep and told me that it was from a world where it was a good guy, that all it wanted was to get home, I would kill it with no hesitation because it was a threat to me and my world.”

He finally looked up, returning to staring Peter right in the eyes. “The difference here is I have something you need. I’m the only one who can help get you EDITH back under your sole control. And you all have something I need. You all are my only way home. If you wanted to give your chances of getting EDITH back up and kill me, lock me up, I’d get it. I would fight back on the killing front but I wouldn’t blame you. It’s what I would do.”

“But you, Peter,” he held eye contact for a moment longer before finally looking down again. “You have the opportunity to be better than I am. You’re a good kid. So don’t trust me. Trust my motivations. Trust Scott there,” he looked up for a moment at Scott before looking back down, “to take me out if I try to betray you to your Earth’s Beck’s crew. And give me a chance.”

Silence again reigned supreme in the living room of the Stark cabin. Peter was the one who finally broke the silence. “I gave Beck a chance to return EDITH to me. Apparently, the glasses require both a passcode and a hard reset of the systems they’ve been plugged into. And we’ve been given a chance to deal with the hard reset, now that this Earth’s Beck’s crew knows that our Beck is alive. Scott, I need you to go with Beck. Back him up if he needs help, and take him out if this is all some elaborate scheme, which,” he stared hard at Beck for a moment before continuing, “I haven’t entirely ruled out. Hope, we need you here to help build the Quantum Tunnel so that in the case that Beck is telling the truth, we can hold up our end of the bargain and get him home.”

Scott let out a nervous laugh, “So, what you’re telling me is that you need my skills as a thief as much as my skills as Ant-Man.”

“Yes.” Peter stood, clasping his hands together. “We have six hours until the drones arrive to take Beck. Let’s get to work.”

-

Even working from Tony’s notes and using the old quantum tunnel Hank, Janet, and Hope had built, Hope really wasn’t sure where to start with real dimensional travel. Technically the Quantum Realm could be considered to be another dimension, as well as the versions of the past created through time travel. The trouble was finding that balance in signal between something as otherworldly as the Quantum Realm, and something as mundane as a few years into the past. An Earth, like theirs, but not.

The group of Peter, Scott, and Hope worked quietly for the first hour or so, trying to find a way to scan for the quantum signature of Beck’s home dimension. Finally, Peter again broke the silence.

“So, our Earth’s Beck told us one story about what his Earth was like and where the Elementals came from. What about you? Is there any chance one followed you through? Because I definitely don’t want to fight another one of those things, even if it was a convincing fake that I actually fought.”

“The Elementals are dead on my world now, as far as I know,” Beck began, watching as Hope tried yet another tool from her box to scan him. “From what I saw on the internet when I first arrived, our worlds diverged in the 1950’s. My Earth’s dimensional barriers had always been weaker than average, and the advent of the Nuclear Age, the testing of atomic bombs, it weakened the barriers enough that things started coming through. The Elementals were beings of enormous power from the primordial planes of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, and each sought to turn my Earth into an extension of their own plane.”

Beck paused, intending to stop there until he noticed the rapt attention he held from both Peter and Scott. “Water was the first. It broke through the dimensional barriers in 1952, and wiped Australia off the face of the planet before any resistance could be brought against it. By the time I was born, my Earth looked very different from yours. Earth caused California to fall into the ocean in the 1960’s, the Sahara is a plane of glass thanks to Fire, and Air would show up briefly whenever it seemed like people would get a break and destroy lives.” Peter noticed that Beck rubbed a ring on his finger – not a wedding band it seemed, it was on the wrong hand, and frowned. Sometimes this man’s mannerisms were too close to the Beck he had fought to be a coincidence.

“Water was also the first to fall, before I became a Sorcerer. Air was finally dispersed in the 90’s, Earth just a few years ago for me. We thought Fire had fallen in 2012, in the Battle of New York City. That was a mistake.” Hope finally stepped back from scanning him and began to plug data into her laptop, looking at it with a frown. “By 2023, almost all of the battalions were disbanded. Most Sorcerers returned to a more contemplative life, and the Enhanced dealt with more mundane villains that started cropping up. And then Prague. Fire showed up again. We fought it with all we had left, but my battalion was almost entirely killed during the fight. A few days later, the battalions are starting to be rebuilt, and _it_ shows up in London.”

Peter narrowed his eyes. All of this was a little too close, a little too convenient to what his Beck had said during the briefing before Prague. But, he didn’t say anything, just taking a few steps back to continue watching Beck, who seemed very aware of his scrutiny.

“The support staff called it an Elemental Conflux. All we knew is that it was bigger than anything we’d fought before, and combined the power of everything we had fought before. That meant that certain techniques that we use to fight one type of Elemental would end up empowering another type. Out of my battalion of seventy-seven Sorcerers, only thirty-two survived the fight in Prague. My squad of eleven was down to four. We had no backup that was going to get there in time, no hope of coming out of the fight alive.” Beck paused, refusing to think too deeply about what had happened in London before continuing, “The fight took over an hour. By the end, my HUD was showing only seven other members of my battalion left alive. The damage to the surrounding environment was massive, and as it came down for its deathblow on the Bridge…”

Beck finally met Peter’s eyes after having avoided them for his entire story. “I ran. I portaled out. Your Beck may be a manipulative bastard, but this one is a coward. That’s why I need to get home so badly.”

He carefully stood up, addressing Hope. “Are you done taking your readings?”

Hope nodded, gesturing to the door up the basement stairs. “I’ll come and get you if I need more. There’s four hours left on the clock, why don’t you go and rest, eat something. No offense, but you look like shit.”

Nodding and huffing out a small laugh, Beck made his way up the stairs. “Thank you, really. I hope I’m able to hold up my end of the bargain.”

The door closed behind him. Peter wasn’t sure what to think. The story that Beck had told was a little too close to what Mysterio had claimed, even down to the fights in Prague and London (although either the Elementals were significantly stronger in real life than Mysterio had made them, or Beck was much weaker than Mysterio had pretended to be.

Neither of those were good options. And apparently, something else wasn’t good either.

“That’s not good.” Hope was peering at a series of waveforms, frowning. Scott and Peter joined her, looking over her shoulder, but neither really had much of an idea what they were looking at.

“What’s not good?” Scott considered the series of waveforms that Hope scrolled through. They looked almost like signals, peaks and valleys that were similar between some forms and different between others.

“While Beck was giving his spiel, I managed to isolate what I believe is the quantum signature of our dimension and his. This,” She gestured to the one at the top of the screen, “Is from the reading I took while we were calibrating the instruments. The signal to noise ratio wasn’t great, so I decided to take another reading after I took readings from each of us to isolate our own quantum frequency.”

She scrolled down slightly, showing three nearly identical waveforms. “I suspect the slight differences between this one,” she pointed to the first one, “and these two are due to the time that Scott spent in the Quantum Realm. Apparently spending time in another dimension can start to change your signal. Which is where we start to run into problems, because this is Beck’s signal after an hour.”

She pointed to a fifth waveform. It wasn’t significantly different from the first one that had been taken from Beck, but Peter could see the small shifts in the location and sizes of the peaks and valleys of the form to know it had changed, and was in fact shifting to better match the signature of this dimension. Which meant…

Hope sighed as both Scott and Peter looked at her, waiting for her to explain why this was important. “It means that unless we can backtrack out what his original dimensional signal was when he first arrived, which I don’t think any of us know when it exactly was, we don’t have a clean copy of his original quantum signature. And we’re already leaving too much up to chance for me to be comfortable with this plan to begin with without having a clear idea of where our destination is. We can get him to another dimension, sure, but probably not _his_ dimension.”

On the bright side, Peter thought as he processed this new complication, all of this does lend credence to Beck’s claims that he was from another dimension. “Alright. Well, let’s assume that our plan will work. How long until his dimensional signature matches our own?”

“It’s hard to extrapolate the rate of signal decay, but judging the change we saw over an hour, and the small differences in Scott’s signature…” Hope ran a few calculations in her head. “A day, maybe two before the decay is too far gone to extrapolate anything back.”

With that, the three grimly went back to work on modifying the Quantum Tunnel to work once they had a usable signature. Peter was already distrustful of Beck’s motivations. If they were unable to hold up their end of the bargain, he wasn’t sure how the other man would react.

-

A lot of people would assume the life of a Sorcerer revolved around magic. Thanks to the Harry Potter series, people had a misconception that magic and technology don’t mix. This is untrue. While there are things that magic can do that technology could never even dream of, there are things that technology does enormously better.

The internet was one of those things. Having returned from the rooftop of Liz’s apartment back to the Sanctum Sanctorum, one Doctor Stephen Strange was desperately trying to figure out what he had missed over the past few days while trying to keep this dimension safe from actual threats.

Over the course of a few hours, Strange learned the following. First, several things that looked like interdimensional threats he had encountered before in passing had appeared on Earth without any of the dimensional distortions that should have accompanied them. Second, a man calling himself Mysterio had been the one to defeat these “elementals,” with the aid of Night Monkey (who Strange was pretty sure was Spider-Man in a different suit).

Third, this Mysterio person claimed that Spider-Man (who Strange already knew was named Peter Parker, thank you conversations on a strange alien spaceship) was behind the attacks, and that he was trying to take out his competition to be the next Iron Man.

And that was frankly absurd. Strange had met the kid. He was a good person, but not a leader, not someone who wanted to be in the spotlight like Tony had always craved.

Some intuition in the back of Strange’s mind told him that the elusive interdimensional visitor who had appeared on a roof in New York City was mixed up in all of this. There was really only one way to know what had happened on the roof of that apartment building, and as much as he wasn’t a fan of touching that magic again, sometimes personal sacrifices were necessary.

After informing Wong that he was not to be disturbed under any circumstances, Strange settled himself in his room and began rearranging the threads of magic that surrounded him to his own design. Without the Time Stone it would be significantly more difficult to look back at the events of the past day, but the Stone’s influence on reality still lingered even now, almost six years after its destruction in this timeline, to be able to pull its last few threads of power together.

With a sudden jerk of magic, Strange found himself in astral form standing on the rooftop of Liz’s apartment building. It wasn’t long before things started happening. He watched as the golden sparks of a portal began opening a hole several feet above the roof, and noted with some concern how the portal boundaries warped and twisted unnaturally.

And then a man fell through, unconscious and bleeding. Despite the superficial resemblance to the man who called himself Mysterio, Strange’s trained eyes picked out the differences. The shoulder pauldrons holding the cape to the breastplate lacked the eye iconography that Mysterio’s armor had, replaced instead with the same circle and curved lines that were on the casing of the Eye of Agamotto and made up the Sanctum’s main skylight. That was the obvious difference. There were other little things – slightly different colors on the armor, the wounds on the man’s face were in different places, the sparks of golden magic slowly fading from his fingertips as the portal closed above him…

Strange caught a glimpse through the portal before it snapped shut, but only saw rubble and ruin. He couldn’t blame whoever this man was for trying to escape from where he had come from, but dimensional rifts were dangerous. He was fairly sure that this man – Beck? – was a Sorcerer, judging by his magic and iconography, but the power to open a portal between dimensions was staggering. He released the time spell, allowing himself to fall backwards onto his bed as the release of channeling such potent magic left him lightheaded and woozy for a moment. Strange allowed himself one minute of rest before carefully pulling himself back upright.

If this man was a Sorcerer, even one from another dimension, that meant that Strange could track him. As Sorcerer Supreme, he had at least a passing familiarity with the hundreds of magical signatures of the Sorcerers living and working and training under him. A new signature, especially one that originated from a known point, would be easy to track.

Strange let his mind once again drift from his body. Kamar Taj was the brightest light in his mind’s eye, nearly drowning out the smaller pinpricks of individual Sorcerers scattered across the globe. It took a moment for him to be able to tune out this light and seek out Beck’s signature.

It was faintly still there at Liz’s, a scattering of pixie dust in an otherwise mundane setting. It was easy to track it to a point somewhere in Missouri, where only a faint glow remained, and then to a location very familiar to Strange.

Of course he would go to the Stark cabin. Why wouldn’t he go to the location that would be most likely to give aid to the person that his duplicate had just very publicly antagonized. Strange allowed himself to fall out of his trance, the bright glow of magic still leaving spots on his vision.

Check the clock. 4 am. Another quick peak at the Astral Plane. Beck’s magical signature was dormant. He seemed to be asleep as well. Or unconscious, in which case the Starks would have the situation well in hand and he didn’t need to be there right this minute.

Strange rolled over, swiping a hand across his face as another wave of lightheadedness washed over him. He could deal with this in the morning.

-

Meanwhile, at 4 am, Pepper Potts was still awake, making phone calls. Where science and magic could fail to exonerate Peter, Pepper hoped the legal system could come to his aid. And there was only one firm, one lawyer she trusted to take on the weird cases, where everyone else was sure the defendant was guilty.

She dialed the number. The phone rang.

“You have reached the voicemail box of: Matthew Murdock. Please leave a message. If this is in regards to a case, please contact the main number of Nelson, Murdock, and Page.”

“Hi, Matt? This is Pepper Potts. I might have a case for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is pretty much my favorite one in this entire fic. I'm super excited to share it with you guys.
> 
> Teaser: Perchance to Dream
> 
> Sorcerers don’t dream, not like normal people. There is a price to pay for tapping into phenominal cosmic power, the energy that binds the multiverse together. One side effect of having the multiverse literally running through your nervous system is changes to the way it works.


	5. Perchance to Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! This chapter marks the halfway point of the fic (chapter 10 is DVD extras and a longer teaser for the next big work in the series). We're getting there, guys.
> 
> Ok, so this chapter is a little short, sorry. Most of the rest of the chapters do fall in the 4-5k range, rather than the >5k range the earlier chapters were. However, if it makes you feel better, the next three (yes, three) works in this series have been finished. There's two shorter oneshots that run about 2-3k each, and a longer form oneshot that runs around 8k. If you check the series description, these are Civilian Life, The Birthday Party, and Stargazing. In addition, another fic has been added to the list, entitled Building a Portfolio, which will introduce my favorite Marvel comics character (well, technically they're my top two Marvel characters which sounds confusing but you'll understand soon enough). I'm working on that fic now, then will come Rise of the Black Dahlia, and The Anniversary, which is actually the fic I wanted to write next before I realised how much setup it would need to make sense. So you guys get more content and I get more work to do, I guess.
> 
> But enjoy this chapter. Beck doesn't.

Sorcerers don’t dream, not like normal people. There is a price to pay for tapping into phenomenal cosmic power, the energy that binds the multiverse together. One side effect of having the multiverse literally running through your nervous system is changes to the way it works.

On Beck’s world there had been academic studies done over the years, trying to quantify the changes to a Sorcerer’s body over the years. All ended in failure. You can test for things like changes in brain chemistry, try to explain the side effects of a human body built to run on the amount of electricity needed to turn on a lightbulb suddenly channeling enough energy to power a city block on a regular basis. The issue is that Science didn’t like the answers that came back, given they made no physical sense.

Yes, there had been studies. Within the Sorcerer community, however, it was just a fact. It was almost a rite of passage for an acolyte to stop having the dreams of a normal person. It was when they could say, ‘I am finally capable of channeling immense amounts of energy, screw you, physics!’ It was a small price to pay to not have the same sweet relief of randomly firing neurons painting pretty pictures in your mind. A small price to pay to not even have the luxury of nightmares and the relief of waking up and knowing they weren’t real.

Some Sorcerers would deal with it by simply never really sleeping. Their bodies would lie unconscious while they spent their resting hours in their astral forms, never resting, always working, until their minds would crack under the pressure and their support staff would give them the good drugs and knock them out for a week to allow them to recover.

Other Sorcerers would skip step one and go right to sleeping aids, preferring eight hours of oblivion to the alternative.

And then there were the stupid (or brave, depending on how you looked at it) ones. The ones who accepted the price of power and knew for every night of peaceful oblivion their mind rewarded them with, there would be a night where the multiverse would come crashing in and they would _see_.

Did I say Sorcerers don’t dream? Technically, they don’t. Dreaming implies a level of unreality to the visions they see at night. But every Sorcerer knows that what they see at night is absolutely real.

Maybe not for them. Maybe not on their world. Maybe not yet - there was a whole branch of Sorcery on Beck’s Earth dedicated to interpreting the dreams of their fellows, using them as premonitions.

Sometimes, however, a Sorcerer’s dream really didn’t need any outside interpretation. Sometimes they were exactly what they appeared to be, no matter how unpleasant that appearance may be. 

This is why when Quentin Beck found himself on the ruined walkway of the Tower Bridge, facing a hauntingly familiar face, he knew exactly what was going on.

Well, exactly might be a little bit of an exaggeration. He knew approximately what was going on, and had a good guess as to what was going to happen next. And he was definitely not happy about it.

It was like looking into a funhouse mirror. Beck’s own projected form wore his uniform, his armor against the threats of the world. The other man, who stared at him from the other end of the walkway, also wore something that might have been armor, although it was nothing like anything Beck had seen before. Instead of shining gold and green and red, the other man wore a grey and black form fitting suit, an empty pistol holster strapped to his thigh, and black gauntlet-like gloves, one of which had a screen attached to it that cast a weak, flickering light over the other man as he distractedly tapped at it.

Then there were the other man’s wounds. Beck knew he wasn’t in the best of shape, but he could see several dark stains on the other man’s abdomen, slowly spreading as the two regarded each other, along with numerous scrapes and cuts (and my god was that shards of glass) on his face.

And then the other man’s face twisted into an ugly sneer as he advanced on Beck. “You know, I wasn’t sure what your game was. Wasn’t even sure you were real and not some scheme that William was trying to pull. But here you are. Here,” he finished closing the gap, laying a hand on Beck’s shoulder who barely resisted flinching away, “we are.”

Every Sorcerer had heard the stories, of people angry or vengeance filled enough that their spirit refused to move on when their body died. It was rare, but it was dangerous, as the spirits would become more and more twisted as time went on until something took it out - or it fulfilled the purpose it had stayed behind for.

Beck felt like he was going to throw up. Encountering one of these spirits would be bad enough, but when it was his own face, his own eyes that he had stared into every morning in the mirror looking back at him with rage and disgust and something utterly broken and unhinged, that was something else.

The astral form of Quentin Beck Prime took his hand off of Beck’s shoulders, spinning away to pace up and down the corridor. “What are the odds. I mean, really what are the odds that another version of myself would show up with the same story I made up and try to sell it as the truth?”

“Well,” Beck answered quietly, eyes carefully tracking the movements of Prime, “in an infinite multiverse-“

“Shut up!” It was like he teleported. One second Prime was at the far end of the walkway, the next, his ghostly hand was millimeters away from Beck’s throat, his face contorted in rage before he pulled back, seemingly regaining control over himself. “You don’t get to talk, showing up here and claiming to be a hero with your fancy cape and lasers. That was _my_ story. _My plan_!”

Beck watched as Prime pulled a few feet away from him before turning back, face still contorted in rage. Beck tried to keep calm, but there was something disturbing on a primal level of having yourself look at you with such hatred. Prime jabbed two fingers into Beck’s chest and snarled, “And you don’t get to stand there like you’re so. much. better. You look at me with disgust, and oh,” he leaned in to Beck’s face, his nose less than an inch away, “is that fear? Are you afraid of me? Or are you afraid of what I represent?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Beck tried to take a few steps back but Prime followed him, always keeping uncomfortably close to him.

“Oh, I think you know exactly what I mean.” Prime was so close now that if they were in physical form, Beck would have felt his breath. “We’re the same, you and I. Both wanting to be heroes in a world desperately in need of salvation. I’ve said it before, people don’t listen unless you wear a cape, or can fly, or shoot lasers out of your hands. And you,” Prime traced a finger down the side of Beck’s face, “You have all three, don’t you?”

Beck finally had enough and shoved Prime back, who went flying into the far wall of the walkway, chuckling darkly. “What do you want? You invaded my sleep for a reason, and I don’t think it was just to be a creep.”

Shaking his head, Prime carefully got up from where Beck had thrown him and leaned up against the wall, cool and unbothered. “I pulled you here to have a chat. You are, after all, me, and my sense of self preservation is fairly strong.”

“I am _not_ you.” Beck began mentally reaching out, trying to find the magical escape hatch to get himself out of the dreamscape.

“Suit yourself.” Prime approached once again, flicking an imaginary piece of dust off of Beck’s shoulder. “I called you here to help you, of course. You see, from here, I can watch everything that happens on that miserable little marble of a planet. And I just saw something very interesting. Do you want to see?”

When Beck didn’t respond, Prime shrugged. “I suppose you don’t want to know that your new allies are just using you?” In a flash he was behind Beck, whispering into his ear, “They can’t help you. They don’t have the first idea of how to get you home. Besides, they don’t trust you anyway. They think you’re me!”

Beck’s jaw clenched slightly, but he still didn’t respond. He wasn’t going to give this mad spirit the courtesy of showing just how much his words were getting to him. By this point, Prime had moved away again and was messing with the screen on his wrist again. “It took me a little while to get the hang of the rules of my little pocket dimension, but now…” The environment around the glass encased walkway blurred and shifted before settling into the basement of the Stark cabin.

The scenario played out. Prime looked back and forth between Beck and the images, his smirk growing with every passing second. “As you can see,” the image faded and returned back to and empty blue sky, “They aren’t going to be able to get you home. They barely know what they’re doing.”

“But they’re trying!” Beck finally broke his silence, gesturing to where the images had been. “The may be stuck for now, but they’ll figure it out. They didn’t want to tell me because of _exactly this_. What the hell did you do to that kid?”

“I told him to walk away.” Prime shook his head, his expression almost believably sad. “He didn’t, so he was a threat. I don’t like loose ends. But here’s my suggestion.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Beck redoubled his efforts to try to get out of the dreamscape, but he couldn’t find an exit.

“Well, it’s either you listen to me or I keep you trapped here forever. My pocket dimension, my rules.” That finally caught Beck’s attention. His head snapped up to meet Prime’s eyes, who was staring at him with an intensity that he hadn’t yet displayed. “Good. Now here’s my suggestion. You don’t have to follow it, but keep it in mind. Leave. When I wake you up, you leave the cabin. Wait for my crew to pick you up. Work with them. Maybe with their help and EDITH you find a way home. But in the meantime,” He walked back up to Beck, placing his hands on his shoulders in a very uncomfortable parody of a proud parent, “You have the potential to be the most powerful hero on this planet. Take advantage of what I set up. Soon enough you’ll see, people need something to believe in. I set up Mysterio to take advantage of that belief, and you have the opportunity to be something that I could only dream of. Show them!” He shook Beck slightly, “Show them that Mysterio is the truth!”

He finally took a step back from the rattled Beck. “We’ll talk again soon. Wakey wakey!” He finally placed two fingers on Beck’s forehead, and pushed.

And Beck woke up on a couch in the Stark cabin.

-

Peter had been sitting on the chair opposite from Beck for close to twenty minutes at this point. Scott and Hope had decided to take a break from working on the quantum tunnel half an hour after the realization that without a definite quantum signature to target, there really wasn’t much hope of sending Beck back to his own dimension.

Despite himself, Peter found himself believing the man’s story. Despite his illusion technology, Peter didn’t think that a quantum signature was something that he could easily fake.

Unless he could, and that was how he had convinced Fury in the first place that he wasn’t from this Earth.

But even then, if this was the Beck that had tormented Peter over the past few days his plan now didn’t make sense. Why would he show up barely any time after an illusion of him had taunted Peter, claiming to be a literally different man with a slightly different power set? And those shields had been real, that portal that Hope and Scott had walked through was real, he seemed so sincere…

So had his Beck, of course. That was what had made the betrayal hurt so much.

So here Peter was, sitting on a chair and watching someone who looked like the man who had tried to kill him and his friends sleep. In sleep, it was hard to see the same man who had mocked him in Berlin, who had screamed at him on the bridge. Despite the dirt on his shirt and the blood still crusted under his nose and in his hairline, this Beck looked calm. At peace, almost. There was no glint of madness in his eyes, no harsh lines of worry or rage on his face.

He looked younger, and in his Hawaiian shirt it was hard for Peter to see him as a credible threat. It was odd how still the man was. He hadn’t moved at all since Peter had begun watching him – he laid on his back, one arm crossed over his chest while the other draped off the side of the couch, fingertips just barely brushing the floor. He had removed the heavy black boots and set them side by side at the foot of the couch, revealing thick woolen socks with some sort of cartoon characters embroidered into them that Peter didn’t recognize.

Peter was about to get up, leave, give the man some privacy while he rested until he noticed the small golden-red sparks beginning to form at his fingertips. The man still didn’t move, but Peter watched small, almost unnoticeable expressions start to pass over the man’s face. Confusion. Fear. Something almost like disgust before it moved back to an expression of deep concentration.

Then nothing. Peter moved in a little closer to inspect the man before almost unconsciously springing backwards, attaching himself to the ceiling as Beck went from horizontal to vertical in a blink of an eye, two glowing golden-red shields, eyes wild and unfocused as he desperately looked around, like he was expecting a threat.

“Mister Beck?” Beck’s eyes, still oddly unfocused snapped to Peter on the ceiling, raising his shields in defense before he blinked hard, dropped the shields, ran a hand over his face and sat down heavily on the couch. Peter noted somewhat offhandedly as he let himself slowly drop down from the ceiling that Beck was breathing hard, like he had just run a mile at top speed without slowing down. Beck buried his face in his hands, trying to calm down his breathing.

The face of the other Beck was still seared onto the inside of his eyelids, his own face looking back at him with a sneer that Beck was certain he had never made in his life. “Hey, Mister Beck, you ok?”

Beck finally looked up, meeting Peter’s eyes. The kid had crossed the room again and tentatively placed a hand on Beck’s shoulders. He shrugged off the hand, carefully getting up and putting his shoes back on. “I’m fine. How long until showtime?”

“If your estimate of eight hours was correct, we have less than half an hour until the drones arrive. I was here to wake you up to go over the last bits of the plan before they arrive.” Peter looked over Beck with a critical eye, who had finished putting his boots back on and was now picking up the EDITH glasses from where he had left them on the side table. “Are you sure you’re ok?”

“I’m fine.” Beck made a vague gesture towards Peter. “I’m going to need my armor back, though.”

That stumped Peter. “Armor? You got your sling ring back, we didn’t take any armor off of you.”

“Yeah, you did.” A flash of irritation passed over Beck’s face, so quickly that Peter wasn’t even sure if he had actually seen it. “When you took my ring, you took a watch and a bracelet. My armor is housed in those.”

That was actually kind of surprising for Peter, and another point towards, ‘this Beck is actually from another dimension, huh.’ He fished around in his pocked and pulled them out, offering them to Beck. “I thought they might just be comms or a locator of some sort.”

Beck accepted them, carefully putting them on. “Nah. Newest tech on my Earth. Tony Stark’s a genius.” He didn’t notice Peter’s flinch at that as he finished reattaching the clasp on the watch. “Want to see?”

Peter nodded and watched dumbfounded as Beck tapped the inside of the two pieces of jewelry and the nanites slowly covered Beck’s body like fluid. When the armor finished covering the man after only a few seconds, Peter had to restrain himself from attacking without thinking.

“What do you think, kid?” The voice was metallic, distorted from inside the mist-filled fishbowl helmet and Peter couldn’t quite hide the flinch that came from that. Beck disengaged the helmet, looking at Peter with concern. “Kid? You ok?”

When Peter didn’t answer, he disengaged his armor and it returned the way it had come to its housing. His voice full of concern, Beck slowly approached Peter. “Look, I don’t know what your Beck did to you. And you don’t have to tell me, it’s really none of my business. But I need you to understand that I’m not him, ok? I’m not going to betray you. I haven’t lied to you once and I don’t intend on starting. Ok?”

Peter finally nodded. “We need to plan for the attack.” He turned and walked away from Beck towards the dining room where the rest of the group had begun to assemble, and Beck watched him as he went.

_He doesn’t trust you, and why should you? You’re just like me…_

Beck shook his head slightly, trying to ignore the little voice in the back of his head. Prime wouldn’t use him to finish ruining this kid’s life.

-

He was still pretty out of it as he carefully stood up. Peter had left him alone to gather up the rest of the house’s inhabitants, and he shakily made his way to the bathroom, splashing some water on his face. Maybe all of this, being here in this dimension, this insane plan to help the kid so he’d get back home, maybe it was just a drug induced dream brought on by the medics back home. Maybe he’d wake up and the Elemental threat would be over and he could finally rest.

_Or maybe everything is exactly what it seems._

Beck looked back in the mirror, flinching backwards as his reflection warped and twisted. Standing before him was the same battered man from his dream, his own eyes staring back with that glint of madness in him. Beck frantically rubbed his eyes, refusing to look in the mirror again as he splashed water back on his face.

He couldn’t look away entirely, but when he looked back, his reflection was back to normal, dirty Hawaiian shirt, dark circles under his eyes, scared expression and all. Maybe he really was going crazy.

_Or maybe you’re finally going sane?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, once again, thank you so much for all y'alls support. When I started this I was hoping for like maybe one or two comments by the end. As I post this chapter, this fic has nearly reached 1k hits, 20 comments, and over 100 kudos. You guys are amazing. Thank you.
> 
> Teaser: Cry Havoc
> 
> This is how Quentin Beck ended up staggering out of the cabin, nose bloodied and at least one rib broken. Drones swooped overhead, their camouflage broken thanks to the upgraded perimeter sensors, and Pepper and Peter flew and swung respectively between the trees, blasting the drones out of the sky.
> 
> It all began with the end of the planning meeting at 5:30 am. Happy had driven May and Morgan out of the cabin before the meeting began, heading towards the newly rebuilt Avengers compound. This left Clint, Hope, Scott, and Pepper behind in the cabin, strategizing how to make Beck’s escape seem as realistic as possible.


	6. Cry Havoc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things start to get interesting. Also, Matt Murdock shows up as more than just a mention, finally.

This is how Quentin Beck ended up staggering out of the cabin, nose bloodied and at least one rib broken. Drones swooped overhead, their camouflage broken thanks to the upgraded perimeter sensors, and Pepper and Peter flew and swung respectively between the trees, blasting the drones out of the sky.

It all began with the end of the planning meeting at 5:30 am. Happy had driven May and Morgan out of the cabin before the meeting began, heading towards the newly rebuilt Avengers compound. This left Clint, Hope, Scott, and Pepper behind in the cabin, strategizing how to make Beck’s escape seem as realistic as possible.

“Well, you’re going to have to punch him a few times, obviously.” Clint had pointed out, and Peter and Beck had met eyes with amusement and resignation. Obviously Beck would have gotten injured during his escape if he was nothing more than a talented con-man. That didn’t mean he was happy about it.

A quick but thorough beating later, Beck was running like a normal, unenhanced person across the cabin grounds towards the woods as he dodged drone fire intent on the cabin’s defenders. He barely resisted throwing up a shield as a drone crashed next to him, Hope flying past him after having disabled the drone from the inside.

“Comms check. Beck, what’s your status?” The team had succeeded in patching their comms frequency into Beck’s own implanted communications device, although the static wasn’t a particularly good sign.

“Almost to the tree line. Scott, you doing ok?” Beck spared a look down into his shirt pocket long enough to see the miniaturized man give him a thumbs up before shrinking to his minimum safe size and getting comfy in the seam. Beck put on another burst of speed, finally reaching the tree line and carefully navigating his way towards the coordinates that William had given him in the original call.

Once at the tree line, Beck slowed down a moment to catch his breath before pulling on the EDITH glasses. The call waiting light was blinking again, and once he managed to get his breathing under control, he answered.

The face on the other end was unfamiliar, but EDITH identified him as Guterman, who gave Beck a pleasant smile. “The drones seem to have done their job. I’m waiting about a mile down the road for you with a car.” Beck did his best not to flinch as the shockwave of an explosion hit him from behind, the trees rustling from the impact. “We’re all looking forward to seeing you again, boss.”

“Yeah, uh, me too.” Beck tapped the side of his glasses to turn off the call, and started making his way towards the location of the car waiting for him. Constant updates from the fight came over his comms, until finally moments before the car came into sight, confirmation that the last drone had been destroyed came in from Pepper.

No one on Team Parker seemed to have been seriously injured, so that was good at least.

Beck, on the other hand, was limping fairly significantly by the time he reached the car. He was bruised and sore, and keeping his magic from beginning the process of healing was harder than he had anticipated. With all that, it wasn’t hard to sell a daring escape as he collapsed into the back seat of a nondescript beige sedan. The man from the call – Guterman, Beck hazily remembered – turned back from the driver’s seat.

“Boss, you have no idea how happy the crew was to hear you had escaped. When your suit vitals dropped to zero we all went to Plan B, of course, but I was not looking forward to having to be the one in the suit, you know?” Guterman kept up a stream of words that Beck only vaguely paid attention to, his eyes drifting to the road instead.

“If you don’t mind my saying so, you look like shit, boss. We’ll have a medic standing by once we get to the safe house. Most of the crew is on their way, should be here by the end of the day to hear what your next big plan is.” They stopped at a red light, and Guterman looked back at Beck again. “You do have a plan, right?”

Beck nodded slowly before finally slumping in the seat slightly, eyes fluttering closed. He wasn’t unconscious, but if he could get the other man to believe he was it would make keeping the story that Team Parker had cooked up straight easier.

Luckily, Guterman seemed to buy it.

-

The drive was longer than Beck was expecting it to be. By the time they pulled into an older industrial building off a highway that looked like it hadn’t seen use in at least fifteen years, the sun had risen high overhead and Beck was starting to get hungry. When had he last eaten? He found it hard to remember as Guterman helped him out of the car and through the front door, where another man took him aside and began to clean and dress his injuries. He was finally left alone with a clean set of clothing, which he gratefully put on (he wasn’t terribly happy about the loss of his padded shirt under his armor, but the Hawaiian shirt had seen better days).

When he finally was lead into the large open area of the building, the atmosphere was not at all what Beck was expecting. He had been expecting some sort of command center, maybe some screens or glowing dials or something.

What he got was akin to a party. As he carefully made his way out onto the walkway overlooking the floor, he saw close to a dozen people, all with drinks and food in hand from a long table covered in cheap snack food and alcohol. A handful of drones idled on the far end of the room, but no one seemed to be paying much attention to them. He deliberately put his hand down on the railing, resisting the instinct to brush off his hand as Scott jumped from where he had been holding on to Beck’s armor watch and onto the railing, making his way out to explore the compound and find the computer system that EDITH had been hooked into.

Moments later, the attendants below looked up, catching sight of the man they believed to be their boss standing above them. Conversation ceased, and Beck looked down at them uncomfortably as a scattering of applause filled the large room. He couldn’t repress a flinch, however, as someone clapped him on the back.

“Good to have you back, Boss.” William had walked up behind Beck, a large silver case in hand. “We’ll deal with EDITH after the party. I’m excited to hear what your plans are.” With that, he started making his way down the stairs, a cry of ‘toast, toast, toast!’ accompanying him.

Beck swallowed nervously, but raised an imaginary glass to the waiting crowd, who quieted almost immediately. “I’m sure you’re all wondering how I escaped the jaws of death, huh?”

There was a quiet murmur of laughter from the crowd as Scott’s voice came through Beck’s comms, “That case that guy has – it’s linked to EDITH. I’m gonna try and get inside it and see what I can do.”

“Well,” Beck continued, not giving Scott any indication that he had heard him, “It’s a hell of a story. You see, SHIELD picked me up off of that bridge before I had a chance to sneak away. They brought me to the states, and put me in the charge of one of the most gullible agents I have ever met. To Clint Barton!” He raised the imaginary glass again, and the assembled crew repeated the gesture, laughingly repeating the toast. “For an agent, he sure bought my, ‘hey, you’ve got the wrong guy, I’m actually Quentin Beck from another dimension, not the one who claimed to be one!’ Oh, thank you.” One of the Crew had run up and gave Beck an actual glass of champaign, which he took a sip from before continuing.

“In Mister Barton’s infinite wisdom, he decided to take me to the one person who was least likely to believe me. To Peter Parker!” The glasses were raised, the toast was repeated, “Who decided to test whether or not I was his Quentin Beck by giving me EDITH again and seeing what happened.”

“And finally, to our own William Ginter Riva. To all of you, who tried to carry on my legacy, even when it looked like I couldn’t be here to carry it on with you.” Beck drained the glass, the alcohol helping numb how terrifying it was how easily these people believed him.

 _People will believe anything, and Mysterio is the truth_ … The little voice in the back of his head whispered, and Beck unconsciously clenched his jaw slightly before raising his now empty glass once again. “We have EDITH again now. With her, and with Parker discredited, there’s nothing stopping Mysterio’s rise to power. To Mysterio!” He finally lowered his glass, giving the assembled crowd a wink and a grin, “Everybody loves a good phoenix metaphor. And the people of this world haven’t seen anything yet!”

The applause was impressive, given that it was being done by barely two dozen people at this point. Beck made his way down the stairs, discretely raising a finger to his ear to activate his comms. “Scott? Status?”

“You know, if I had any doubts about trusting you that speech definitely wouldn’t have helped, man.”

“Scott!”

“Yeah yeah the chip that Peter gave my from Tony’s stash is working. I need another ten minutes, and EDITH should be disconnected from their systems. Go and enjoy the party. I dunno, schmooze a little. I’ll let you know when it’s time for Part Two.” Beck could hear the electronic chirps of the hacking system working over the comms in the background, and hoped Scott was right with the time. Every second spent here made the little voice in the back of his head grow louder. What was stopping him from taking advantage of this Crew, from becoming the Beck they thought he was?

Well, his morals for one.

 _Forget about those!_ Beck flinched as he caught sight of his reflection in a champaign flute he was handed. That wasn’t the loose t-shirt and pants he had been given, that was the strange grey and black suit the other Beck had worn in the dream. In a trance, Beck held the flute up to the light, nearly dropping it as his reflection winked at him. It wasn’t a dream, then, what he had seen in the bathroom that morning, how his reflection had warped and changed into that of Mysterio the madman.

“Boss, you ok?” William had approached him, a look of genuine concern on his face. Beck looked back at the flute, but this time the reflection was the same tired, bruised, and still slightly bloodied face he was expecting.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine.” Beck looked back at the shorter man, who gestured with the case towards him.

_You’re not fine, you’re still suffering from delusions of heroism. I can’t help you if you don’t listen to me!_

“I’m fine.” Repeating himself seemed to reassure William even if it didn’t quite reassure Beck himself. William gave Beck a quick smile, patting him on the back.

“When you’re ready to get back to work, I’ve got the basic uplink. We’re still having the rest of the stuff shipped over from the command room back in London.”

Beck nodded, looking out over the sea of partygoers. “Is everyone here?”

“Let me see… Janice, Guterman, Victoria…” William gestured to the major players as he named them. “Yeah, the main crew is here. I think a few of the support staff are still hiding after London, but they’ll come out of the cold soon enough.”

“Great. Make sure no one leaves the party. I’m going to have some announcements to make.” Beck turned quickly away, grabbing another flute of champaign and downing it in one gulp. He refused to look too closely at his reflection in the glass, but he still caught a flash of grey in the corner of his eye.

What the hell was going on?

_You’re going crazy. Just listen to the voice in your head and it’ll all be ok. Follow my lead…_

Crazy would be listening to the voice in his head, wouldn’t it?

_Ok, fair point. I still have your best interests at heart. You go through with this plan and you’re going to lose a whole lot of supporters that I put a lot of effort into threatening enough to make them go with whatever I say._

Beck swallowed, hard. He had never heard of anything like this happening, but then again, he had never heard of anyone having an encounter with a dead alternate version of themselves. He could keep it together until he finished this mission, and then he would deal with the consequences.

“Beck? Finished rewiring the system. All it needs is your passcode and we’re good to go.”

Ah, there’s the hitch. Beck still had no idea what the hell the other Mysterio had chosen as the passcode for the glasses. For all he knew, it was a long string of letters and numbers, or the name of his first pet, or-

_Or you could just ask me. I don’t agree with your foolish plan of action, but if you pretend to be a good guy long enough it’ll hurt that Parker kid even more when I finally get you to see reason._

Beck carefully pulled on the glasses, clenching his jaw before finally relaxing slightly. Alright. He could use this passenger in his head. He was strong enough to resist the devil on his shoulder, and if it was offering help he certainly wasn’t going to refuse it, not now.

_I don’t like being called it, you know. I’m part of you now. Besides, this way you owe me one. To be fair, you probably would have figured out the passcode anyway, people certainly like saying it enough around me. You. Us?_

“The passcode,” Beck whispered through clenched teeth. “Now.”

_Alright alright don’t get your pants in a twist. Like I said, you would’ve guessed it after a little bit. Mysterio is the truth._

Beck stood, dumbfounded for a moment, as the prompt flickered up on the glasses. “Really?”

_Seemed thematic at the time. Arc words and all that, you know?_

“Scott, standby for things to get crazy. EDITH?”

“Yes, Quentin?” The voice of the AI switched on in Beck’s earpiece, and Beck barely resisted flinching. No one called him Quentin, not anymore.

“Authorizing full system reboot. Return control of EDITH system to Peter Parker. Route controls through FRIDAY if I’m not able to get the glasses back to him.” Beck spared a moment to look around at the assembled group of Beck’s crew, beginning to summon the magic to create the cage that would hold them until the authorities got to them.

“Certainly, Quentin. Simply speak your passcode, and I will transfer control.”

God, he hoped the little voice in his head wasn’t fucking with him. “Authorization passcode, Mysterio is the truth.”

There was a pause. Seconds went by and Beck got ready to start a portal to get the hell out of here.

“Passcode accepted. Control over all EDITH systems transferred to Peter Parker.”

The drones hovering in the corner of the room dipped slightly, their protocols going back over to the original system set up by William. Shit. Beck had forgotten about those. That’s a problem for future him.

_You’re welcome._

“I’m not thanking a voice in my head,” Beck muttered under his breath. “Scott, you in position?”

There was a buzzing in Beck’s ear as an ant dropped Scott off on Beck’s shoulder, who then slid into a shirt pocket. “In position and ready to go.”

“Alright.” Beck took one last look at the Crew, running over the plan in his head one more time. “Showtime.”

He slowly closed his eyes. Accessing the Mirror Dimension, especially when dragging a large amount of civilians with him, was never easy. He had done it a handful of times during his service, always to send non-combatants out of the way of an elemental threat when conventional travel methods wouldn’t work. Controlling reality within the Mirror Dimension was harder than just getting there, but Beck was reasonably certain that he could control it well enough to keep these people trapped long enough for Team Parker to find a way to take them into custody.

It took one practiced move to throw out his hand and let reality shatter around him. The chatter on the party floor stopped as the Mirror Dimension surrounded the warehouse, and the walls began to rearrange themselves in fractaled patterns that removed the door and windows from the warehouse, leaving the flickering fluorescents attached to the ceiling as the only lightsource.

Beck caught a glimpse of his reflection in one of the last panes of mirror glass as his fractals surrounded the area instead. The man in the grey and black mocap suit winked at him. Beck must have reacted strongly enough for Scott to notice, who came over the comms, concerned.

“You ok?” Scott pulled himself up to the top of the pocket, watching the swirling patterns of stone and metal before dropping back down. “Ok, that’s pretty trippy.”

Clapping was the last sound in the universe he expected to hear once he finished setting up what really amounted to a glorified jail cell. And yet, the people down below were clapping, cheering.

_They think this is just an illusion. And you could let them think that if you reversed it and just went with my plan…_

Ignoring both the clapping and the voice of Mysterio, Beck instead activated his armor and his combat spells, the clapping slowing as he slowly lifted into the air. “You people are all so proud of yourselves, aren’t you? Who cares if thousands of people die everywhere you go, it doesn’t matter, right? As long as you look like the hero in the end?”

The clapping was definitely done at this point, the Crew looking up at him in clear confusion. “I’m not your Quentin Beck. I never was. I came from another dimension, where I really was the hero that you pretend to be. You didn’t know it, but you were stealing my story, my history! You thought that you could be me? You’re a bunch of murderers.”

The Crew stood in stunned silence. This was not how tonight was supposed to go.

Beck continue rising, opening a portal through the roof and back into the real world to leave through. “I want you all to sit here and think long and hard about what you’ve done. Blame your boss for what happened, I don’t care. He’s not me. I am a good person. And you? You all are going to pay for the damage you’ve done.”

_Are you a good person, though, Quentin Beck? I’m in your head, I can see your history… You didn’t become a sorcerer because of a misplaced sense of nobility._

Not dignifying that with a response, Beck rose out of the warehouse and sealed the portal behind him. One portal later, and Beck was standing on the front lawn of the Stark cabin once again.

And there, standing in front of the cabin, was the second person he least likely wanted to see, the first being his flesh and blood interdimensional duplicate.

Doctor Strange was paying a house call.

-

The law office of Nelson, Murdock, and Page was quiet on this Sunday morning. Two of the eponymous partners, namely Nelson and Page, were taking the day off. Their workload was slowly picking back up after the Fisk debacle, but there was still time for rest on the weekends.

The third of the partners, one Matthew Murdock, was in the office, slowly turning a pen in his hand as he listened to the message Pepper Potts had left him. There were only a handful of people that Matt trusted to keep his secret, and Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries and wife of the late great Tony Stark wasn’t someone he had expected to ever become involved with his night life, but was one of his more trusted confidants.

During the Blip, with Foggy and Karen gone, Matt had started to take risks. Bigger risks than he had ever before, stupid risks that had resulted in him trying to expand his patrol radius to cover ground once taken by Spider-Man.

One extremely thorough beating later, Matt had found himself in the care of a Stark Industries medical team, an upgraded suit courtesy of Stark himself, and a series of cases to be added to his docket, courtesy of Pepper Potts.

Matt liked Pepper. She was direct and honest, didn’t treat him any differently because of his disabilities (and in fact, more often than not took into account his enhanced senses during their meetings). With the reversal of the Blip and the return of the Stark Industries normal lawyer staff, Matt had expected to see a reduction in the case load that was handed off to him. In fact, he had. In the eight months since Tony’s death, Matt hadn’t heard from Pepper once, and only had a few cases pushed his way as a courtesy by Stark Industries’ legal department.

Until now. Still contemplating his response, Matt played the recording again.

“Hi, Matt? This is Pepper Potts. I might have a case for you.” Long pause. Matt counted the seconds, mouthing the words as the recording of Pepper continued.

“By now I’m sure you’ve heard the news story on Spider-Man.” He had, and he felt bad for the kid. They’d never met, but he did a good job looking out for the little guy on the street and Matt respected that.

“I have my people working on the technology side of things, trying to prove that the video was faked, but in case that fails, I need to know what our best legal defense would be against the accusations. And in the case that this goes to court…” Another pause, longer than before.

“In case this goes to court, I’d like you to consider defending Peter. You’re one of the best lawyers I’ve met, and… Well, Peter is going to need all the help he can get. He was a minor when the Sokovia Accords went through, and although he’s still technically a minor under the Blip Bill, Secretary Ross has had it out for anyone who didn’t sign the Accords since the beginning. The revised Accords are much better, of course, but I don’t want Ross thinking he has the political pressure he would need to force Peter to sign, or worse, throw him on the Raft.”

Well, he does have the leverage, Matt thought, absentmindedly tossing the pen end over end. He knew all about Ross, of course. While he and the other Hell’s Kitchen vigilantes had managed to stay under the radar while Ross was focused on Avengers level heroes, he knew it was only a matter of time until he’d come after them and try to force them to sign as well.

“I’m sending you all the data we have on what really went down in Europe, as well as the most recent version of the Accords, and Quentin Beck’s Stark Industries employee file. Which does leave a problem. We need to be careful just how we go about pinning this on Beck. We have a guy here claiming to be another universe’s version of the guy, and without our universe’s Beck’s body recovered from London, we don’t have any way to substantiate his claims in court. I believe him, but…”

But Matt got it. If there really was another version of the guy, it wouldn’t do to put an innocent man in prison, but at the same time, it would be extremely difficult to prove Peter was not at fault for the destruction in Europe without providing another target for the jury to go after.

“Anyway,” the message drew near to its conclusion, “I would greatly appreciate it if you would at least consider taking on this case. Peter is a good kid, he doesn’t deserve to have his life ruined by a madman. Your standard fee will be wired immediately to your company account for a consultation, with a sizable bonus if you decide to take the case. Just, think about it, Matt. Please. Call me back.”

The message ended. Matt had already spent the morning reviewing the documents that Pepper had given him, and the case didn’t look good. The SHIELD data on the Elemental attacks was poor at best, with no satisfying conclusion as to whether they had all been faked or not. The cell phone footage of the attack on London would surely be useful, but wasn’t exactly something Matt could comment on without Foggy’s help.

In the end, it came down to he said she said. The employee file on Beck would probably be his best shot, pointing out that Beck was unstable, and had worked on technology that would allow for the large-scale illusions that Peter claimed.

But would that be enough? Matt wasn’t sure. But he certainly wasn’t one to back down from a challenge. The number was dialed, the phone rang.

“This is Pepper Potts.”

“Hi, Pepper? I’ll take the case.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clarification re: where the Netflix shows fit into this continuity. I have only seen Daredevil, most of the first season of Jessica Jones, a couple episodes of Iron Fist and The Defenders, and none of Luke Cage. Since I really only plan on bringing Matt into the limelight for now, Daredevil Season 1 happened more or less as it did in the show and at the same time that it was posted, I'm ignoring Season 2, and Season 3 happened immediately following Endgame, with Fisk getting his deal as a result of the breakdown of the legal system during the Blip. Assuming Endgame happened in October, I'm going to put the events of S3 in March-ish, meaning Nelson, Murdock, and Page has been up and running for about three months by the time of this chapter, which takes place in late June ish.
> 
> Teaser: Some By Virtue Fall
> 
> If there was one thing that Doctor Stephen Strange prided himself on, it was his sense of timing. He had woken up later than he had wanted to, which resulted in him getting by portal to the Stark cabin just after one pm.
> 
> As it turned out, this was perfect timing. It was almost as if he had planned it. Maybe the universe was finally doing him a solid.


	7. Some By Virtue Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Strange finally gets his day in the limelight rather than snippets, things get complicated for the Becks, and Peter sees a ghost.
> 
> Also! Posting schedule has been updated. I have enough of a backlog of writing built up at this point that I'm comfortable moving to a 3 times a week schedule, which will be Monday/Wednesday/Saturday. Due to starting a new job Thursdays are going to be my super busy work ten hours between two part time jobs day, so knowing me I will forget to post on that day more often than not, and so it's Mon/Wed/Sat now.

If there was one thing that Doctor Stephen Strange prided himself on, it was his sense of timing. He had woken up later than he had wanted to, which resulted in him getting by portal to the Stark cabin just after one pm.

As it turned out, this was perfect timing. It was almost as if he had planned it. Maybe the universe was finally doing him a solid.

Before Strange had even walked up to the door, a portal opened behind him. And who would step through it but the person that Strange most wanted to talk to, his interdimensional problem in the form of Quentin Beck.

And Scott Lang, who materialized full-sized next to Beck, and looked back and forth between the two of them in quick succession. “Woah, you’re Doctor Strange! I have so many questions about other dimensions and quantum theory for you, you have no idea. I saw you at the funeral but I didn’t think it would have been appropriate at the time to barrage you with questions so I waited but now, wow, here you are!”

“Yeah, now isn’t a great time either, Mister Lang.” Strange hadn’t stopped staring at Beck, who slowly closed the portal behind him and stared back at Strange, a clear look of worry and fear on his face.

“Scott, can you give these to Peter? Let him know that the mission was a success, once he contacts the authorities I can get Beck’s crew out of the pocket dimension I stashed them in.” Beck didn’t break eye contact with Strange as he handed the glasses over. Scott considered arguing for a moment – he was fascinated to see where this would go – but decided against getting in the middle of a conflict between two wizards.

Beck carefully disengaged his armor, allowing it to slide back into its containers as Strange slowly looked him over. “You know, I was going to go to you for help if these guys weren’t able to but I didn’t want to bother you…”

The excuse sounded weak even to his own ears.

_Come on, man. You’re a better actor than that!_

Now that was odd. Strange’s eyes snapped to a point over Beck’s shoulder as the little voice talked in his head before returning to locking eyes with him. “So you’re the one who left a hole in reality.” It wasn’t a question, and Beck couldn’t stop the involuntary half step back he took as Strange began advancing on him, shaking fingers weaving a spell too complex for him to guess what its purpose was.

But the spell passed over him like a warm ray of sunshine and Strange simply stood there, looking confused. Beck wanted to say something, anything to diffuse the tension, but wasn’t sure what to say.

This was the Sorcerer Supreme! Beck didn’t know his Strange well – they had trained together for a time, but Stephen had been chosen for training at a young age and was rarely seen alongside his less experienced peers. This Stephen Strange didn’t seem to radiate quite the same practiced confidence that his Strange always exuded, but Beck didn’t know much about this world’s Strange.

On his Earth, Strange had become the Sorcerer Supreme after the Ancient One’s death during the Battle of New York, over ten years ago. He had been a Sorcerer since he was ten, and was nearly done with his training by the time Beck had begun his own. This Strange, though…

Beck noted the scars on the man’s hands, the incessant trembling even as he completed another set of delicate motions, and wondered just what his story was. He finally decided on a careful, neutral response to Strange’s last statement. “Not intentionally. And to be honest, I’m really just trying to get home.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen, unfortunately.” Strange finally broke eye contact, looking instead at the intricate weaving lines of red-gold magic that hovered in front of him. “I sealed the breach you came from – very irresponsible, by the way, leaving that there – and even if I wanted to tear another hole in reality to send you home – which I don’t – something is tethering you quite strongly here.”

“Tethering?” Beck was still trying to process the news that he wasn’t going to get home. He wasn’t going to get home. All the work that he had done, all the abuse he had suffered at the hands of people in this dimension while he was just trying to help was for nothing and-

_Yes! Get angry! It’s not too late to take your rightful place in this world! Look at that man, he’s pathetic. A shadow of the great Stephen Strange you knew on your world. He doesn’t even have the Time Stone anymore, you could take him. You’re saturated with dimensional energy from the death of the Elementals, you’re more powerful right now than he could ever dream of-_

“Yes, tethering. I’m trying to figure out what’s causing it.” Strange continued his manipulations of the intricate sphere of magic floating before him, only sparing a quick glance back up at Beck. “The dimensions don’t like it when people travel between them. Until very recently, you were giving off a strong signal marking you as a threat, something to be removed from this universe. Now, however, it’s like this dimension have grabbed ahold of you and won’t let you go.”

_Huh, neat. I guess you’re stuck with me after all._

“It’s almost like,” Strange continued, “This dimension was marking you as ‘other’ until it changed its mind, decided you were this dimension’s Beck and now it won’t let you go. Your underlying dimensional signature is still there if you know where to look, but it’s like it’s been painted over with this dimension’s signature.”

Strange made a quick hand gesture, and the sphere of light shrunk down to the size of a marble before another gesture caused it to vanish into a pinprick of light. “The question now is what to do with you. I’m sure you’re familiar with my job here?”

“To assess threats to this planet and dimension, and deal with them accordingly.” Beck forced himself to remain loose and calm, to not automatically sink into a defensive position and get ready for a fight.

“And how would you assess yourself?” Strange was calm, staring at Beck with his hands loosely clasped behind his back.

“Not a threat.”

_Oh come on, you are a threat, you just won’t do what needs to be done._

“Not a threat.” Beck continued, repeating himself. He wasn’t sure at this point whether he was trying to convince Strange, the voice, or himself. “Potentially even an asset. This world clearly has a lack of people like me if your Beck was able to do what he did with no one getting involved but Spider-Man.”

_Ugh, really? Like you’re going to be able to repair your reputation once Parker gets his grubby little mitts on it to save his own ass. You want to be a hero for this world? They’ll lock you up._

“Hmm.” The sound was low, considerate. Beck swallowed uncomfortably as Strange gave him another onceover, seemingly looking at something Beck couldn’t see. “And what about your passenger?”

_Oh shit._

“I don’t…” Beck began as the voice continued muttering profanity inside his head. “I’m dealing with it.”

“Hm, I’m sure you are.” Strange approached, arms now crossed over his chest, considering. “Sorry about this.”

Strange’s open palm struck Beck in the center of his chest. Beck’s body collapsed to the ground, while two astral Beck’s stared back at Strange.

The first, the Beck wearing his armor, took it in stride. He had had his astral form knocked out before. It wasn’t fun, and he knew he’d be sore tomorrow from the collapse, but he could deal with it.

The other Beck, the one wearing a mocap suit, dark stains spreading further across his chest and shards of astral glass embedded in his face, didn’t take it as well. If he had been physical, he might have thrown up. Instead, he stood (well, floated would be more accurate) motionless, staring down at his hands and body appearing in the physical realm.

Strange made a face, taking in the two Becks floating before him and nodded his head slightly.

“Right. This is going to be a little more complicated than I was expecting.”

The stunned gasp of one Peter Parker, standing behind Strange on the front porch, definitely wouldn’t make it less complicated.

-

It was like a living portrait for a moment. Beck floated, arms across his chest, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Prime looked up at Peter, a flash of fear crossing his face before it was immediately replaced with an ugly sneer. Strange looked back at Peter, wondering how exactly he was going to explain this to the kid.

And Peter? Peter couldn’t breathe. Every misgiving he had had about Beck, every bad experience over the past week, every trauma pulled up by that _bastard_ suddenly came rushing in and it was like he was getting hit by a train again. He frantically tried to suck in a breath that wasn’t coming, trying until darkness washed over him like an old friend.

Then everything moved. Strange, physician’s instincts never fully buried beneath his Sorcerous persona, rushed in to help. Quick check of vitals – other than a few bruises from falling down the front stoop, he’d be fine.

Beck also moved in like he was going to help before remembering the current limitations of his form, instead resorting to hovering over Strange’s shoulder as Peter began to wake up.

Prime, on the other hand, was chuckling. It was quiet and dark and genuinely disturbing. He hadn’t realized what an affect he had had on the kid until now, and in a way, it was almost gratifying that even beyond the grave he could cause the guy who had ruined his plan such distress.

This was what Peter woke up to. Doctor Strange hovered over him, checking his vitals (not on Titan, not on Titan, it’s been eight months), the ghostly form of the other Quentin Beck hovered over Strange looking genuinely concerned, and the quiet laughter of a man that Peter hated more than he knew he was capable of hating before this moment.

“You ok, kid?” Beck started stretching out a hand to help Peter to his feet before realizing the impossibility of that. Peter stared at him, anger and fear competing for dominance in his eyes.

“Not your kid,” Peter mumbled as he carefully got to his feet and moved around Strange to stand before the astral form of the man who ruined his life.

Prime smiled at him. It was a little too wide and showed a little too much teeth and didn’t reach his eyes enough to really count as a smile, though. It was closer to a predator baring its teeth to assert dominance or try to scare its prey.

Peter wouldn’t admit it, but it was working. “Uh, Doctor Strange? What the hell?”

Seemingly at a loss for words, Strange simply shook his head slightly. “I’m not entirely sure. It would seem as if the spirit of the Quentin Beck you fought has entangled itself with the form of our interdimensional visitor.”

“You know, it’s rude to refer to people as ‘it,’ Doctor. Especially when they’re standing right there.” Malice was practically exuding out of Prime at this point as his icy gaze flicked between Strange and Peter. “Hey there Peter. How does it feel to know I won?” He floated closer to Peter, to whose credit it can be said just barely managed to hold his ground. “You ruined my life, I ruined yours. And now, I get to watch it all burn from the safety of that guy’s head.”

He gestured to Beck, who hadn’t spoken since Peter had snapped at him. Beck really needed to know exactly what this guy had done to Peter. He knew the broad strokes, but that didn’t explain everything.

Peter didn’t rise to the bait, instead looking back at Strange. “So, uh, Doctor Strange, sir, is there anything you can do about this?”

“I honestly don’t know.” Strange was still watching the two Becks, mind racing while he was trying to figure out exactly what to do. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. I need to do some research.” Almost distractedly he began to form a portal, only pausing to snap his fingers. As he stepped through, the twin astral forms of Quentin Beck vanished, and the single, earthly form coughed, slowly getting to his feet from where he had been dropped on the ground.

The webshooters were immediately pointed at Beck.

Beck didn’t move, hands open and out to his sides as he simply watched Peter, a carefully neutral expression on his face. “If it would make you feel better, you can web me up. I’m not your enemy, Peter.”

_No, but I am. Damn, it was so nice to be out and about again._

“Shut up!” Beck hissed under his breath, forgetting in the moment that Peter would certainly hear him.

“Is he there?” Peter kept the webshooters trained on Beck but slowly approached. “Can you hear him? Does he know what is going on?”

_He can hear me but never listens. Too busy playing the hero to listen to reason._

Beck nodded, slowly. “It’s like a little voice in my head. A Mysterio on my shoulder, if you will.”

“What does he want?”

“Oh, you know, the usual.” Beck shrugged, sighing. “For me to follow in his footsteps? Use my power to expand the plan he built and make Mysterio the hero he wanted him to be, to save his reputation.”

“And what do you want?” Blue eyes met hard brown ones, Peter staring into Beck’s eyes like he could see his soul laid bare.

Beck sighed again. In that moment, he looked so tired, so defeated, so old beyond his otherwise youthful appearance. “Honestly? I don’t know.”

_Oh, come on, don’t lie to the kid. He deserves the truth. You want to be a hero, but you don’t want to give me the satisfaction._

Peter seemed to take the comment at face value, being otherwise unaware of the conversation taking place inside Beck’s head. Instead, he awkwardly gestured to the glasses hooked on his collar. “Thanks for EDITH back, at least.”

“Yeah, don’t mention it.” Beck finally broke eye contact. “If I can undo some of the damage my predecessor caused, I’m happy to do it.” That was the question, now wasn’t it. What had his predecessor done?

_Oh you know, pretended to be his friend, betrayed him, tried to kill him… Nothing, really. Nothing to get this upset about_.

Prime was an unreliable narrator at best, a liar at worst. Beck knew this. Better to get both sides of the story. “Look, kid. Peter,” he corrected himself when he saw how Peter tensed at being called ‘kid,’ “I don’t know what your Beck did to you. I know you’re trying not to blame me for his actions, but if I knew exactly what he did, maybe I can try to make up for his actions.”

“Why don’t you just ask him?” Peter’s voice was cold as ice as he crossed his arms over his chest, staring Beck down.

“I don’t trust him. Besides, he tends to be a little blasé about things like murder. I want to hear it from you.” Beck tried to be gentle with his tone, like someone would use with a wounded animal.

_Any story he gives you will be full of pointless moral judgements._

The pause stretched out long enough that Beck considered backtracking, telling the kid not to worry about it, he didn’t need to know, when Peter finally responded. “It’s a long story. Let’s go inside.”

-

It really was a long story, and with every word out of Peter’s mouth Beck’s stomach dropped further. Pretended to be his friend, betrayed him, and tried to kill him indeed. How do you come back from that, Beck wondered. How can Peter sit here, five feet away from Beck, and not want to try to kill him for what the other Beck had done.

The story concluded and Beck was momentarily struck dumb. Peter watched him carefully, as if with the revelation of what Prime had done Beck would drop the act and become just as sadistic as the man he had replaced.

“Wow.” That was all Beck could say, his gave dropping to his hands which he had been nervously wringing since Peter began describing how he had discovered the other Beck’s plot.

_Yeah, I know, right? I told the kid to walk away, he didn’t, so really all this pain is on him._

“Yeah, well, now you know.” Peter stood up, uncomfortably walking away from Beck. “I’m trying not to blame you for all the shit he did, I really am, but it’s hard…”

Beck picked up where Peter trailed off. “It’s hard to look at me and not see him. I get it.” He scratched the back of his neck, looking for the words. “Look, it seems like I’m on this Earth to stay, but where I go… I leave some of that to you. When all of this is over, if you never want to see me again I’ll respect that. I think we could do a lot of good work together, but I’m not going to force it. You say the world and I’ll, I dunno, I’ll move to Australia or something. It doesn’t exist on my world anymore, could be cool to visit I guess.”

That actually got a slight chuckle out of Peter. “I don’t… I don’t know, alright? I’m having a hard time figuring a way out of this without throwing you under the bus instead of me. Once this is over… I’ll think about it, ok?”

“I might have someone who can help with that.” Both Peter and Beck looked up as Pepper entered the room, phone in hand. “There’s a lawyer who I think can help us. How are you two feeling about a field trip?”

-

Matt had known it was coming, but there was something extremely disquieting about there existing people who could portal into his private spaces with no more warning than a small of ozone and the soft sound of a shower of sparks hitting the floor.

First impressions time. Pepper he had met before, of course, her steady gait and heartbeat grounding the other two signatures in reality. He knew Peter right off the bat – his heartrate was too fast to belong to anyone but a significantly enhanced human, and the heat he gave off was the sure sign of an enhanced metabolism. And then there was the smell. Not quite human, that tint of something other that marked him to anyone who cared to notice as Other.

And then there was the other one. Matt could sense the power flowing through him as the portal closed, the scent of ozone clinging to him like cheap cologne. The way he held himself, the way he walked, it all screamed military if you knew how to look.

Well, not _look_ , but you know what I mean.

“Matt, so good to see you. Thank you for taking on this case.” Pepper crossed the room, holding her hand out to Matt. “This is Peter, who you’re familiar with, and Quentin Beck.”

Matt tensed. Wasn’t that guy dead? Wasn’t he the villain in all of this? That was what the files that Pepper had sent him had seemed to say. But Pepper wasn’t done explaining.

“Beck has been helping us since he arrived on our Earth a few days ago. He’s from another dimension, and isn’t the one who has caused us all the trouble that we need you to help us out of.”

Her heartbeat remained rock steady as Matt listened for the lie in her explanation. Beck seemed nervous, his heart rate increasing minutely, but there weren’t any of the other signs that would accompany a lie. Either Beck was an extremely good actor, or he really was the victim of the same crimes that Peter was.

“And I have a present for you.” Pepper offered Matt a USB drive, which he immediately plugged into his desktop computer, carefully placing one earbud in to hear what the data had to say. “Autopsy report. It seems like the London police found our Earth’s Beck’s body from where it had fallen into the Thames. At the very least, it helps solve our problem of scapegoating this Beck to save Peter.”

Matt nodded distractedly. That was good news, and if the considerable resources of Stark Industries could perform a DNA test to match the two Becks, it might help. “Any luck on the video?”

Pepper shook her head, annoyed. “I have people looking at it, but even Shuri has said it’s the most convincing fake that she’s ever seen. She’ll still picking it apart, said she’d have an update by tonight.”

“You pulled Shuri into this?” Peter made a face at Pepper.

“Peter, she volunteered. Said she wanted to help.” Pepper placed a calming hand on Peter’s shoulder, who immediately shrugged it off, uncomfortable. “So what’s your plan, Matt?”

Matt sat back down, steepling his fingers as he considered where exactly to begin. “If there is a trial – assuming there is a trial – public opinion is going to play a large part in it. New York City is in a state of shock right now. No one wants to believe that their Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is a criminal who terrorized London, but they don’t have the other side of the story. People want to believe that Spider-Man is innocent. We just need to give them a story that corroborates that. To that end,” Matt paused, knowing what he was about to say would be controversial, “I think we need to take a page out of Agent Romanoff’s book. Release all the data you have about the events in Europe. Package it with a video testimonial from Parker, there, and anyone else who you think would help.”

That was a lot, and the other people in the office were silent for a moment before Peter spoke up. “What about my secret identity, though?”

Matt shook his head slowly, sadly. “I’m afraid that train has left the station. If people get wind that anything is left out of your testimonial, the public will turn on you faster than you would believe. Trust me, I know what it’s like to have your good name slandered in the press until even your best friends start wondering if you’re the real villain.”

Time for a leap of faith. Matt felt around in the bottom drawer of his desk until his hand closed on the hardened Kevlar of his backup helmet. He carefully pulled it out and set it on the desk, smiling slightly at the sudden intake of breath from Peter. Surprisingly, Beck seemed non-plussed. Matt wondered offhandedly if it was just because he had never heard of Daredevil before.

“Wait, Mister Murdock, you’re Daredevil? But you’re-” Peter cut himself off before the conclusion of the sentence, realizing how it might sound. Matt laughed slightly.

“But I’m too good looking to be a vigilante who regularly gets the shit beat out of him? There are more ways to see than sight, kid.”

Peter nodded slowly, thinking over what Matt had said.

“What do you want me to do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teaser: Nothing Can He Lose
> 
> Things moved fast for Peter Parker over the next few days. There was the official arrests of Beck’s crew, held by trustworthy policemen as there confessions were processed. It seemed like their former boss showing up, performing magic as trippy as their best illusions (except they were real!) and calling them murderers was enough to get them to turn on each other and their former boss for leniency.
> 
> The news broke soon after that. First was the very strategic leak of the body of Quentin Beck Prime, waterlogged and still wearing the mocap suit rather than the armor he had appeared in in his last video message.
> 
> Next, just in time, really, came the step by step breakdown of the illusions needed to fake the video in the first place.


	8. Nothing Can He Lose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plans come to fruition, Peter makes some choices, and the real meaning of Tony's last message is considered.
> 
> This is the last major chapter of this story. The epilogue will be posted on Monday, and Wednesday will be the DvD extras+the first of the oneshots that are written. This means next Wednesday will be the first chapter of the next major work in this series, with oneshots filling the space until then.

Things moved fast for Peter Parker over the next few days. There was the official arrests of Beck’s crew, held by trustworthy policemen as there confessions were processed. It seemed like their former boss showing up, performing magic as trippy as their best illusions (except they were real!) and calling them murderers was enough to get them to turn on each other and their former boss for leniency.

The news broke soon after that. First was the very strategic leak of the body of Quentin Beck Prime, waterlogged and still wearing the mocap suit rather than the armor he had appeared in in his last video message.

Next, just in time, really, came the step by step breakdown of the illusions needed to fake the video in the first place. Done like a YouTube video (and it was, in fact, uploaded to YouTube soon after it was sent to the authorities by someone with the handle, “TheRealQueenOfWakanda”), it straddled the line between humor and fact as it broke down the illusion tech used to produce the video, the audio splicing, all of it.

By the time Prime’s employee file was released, the public opinion had started to swing back in favor of Spider-Man’s innocence. Despite all this, however, Secretary Ross was still frothing at the mouth to get his hands on Peter Parker, force him to sign the Accords or throw him in the deepest, darkest part of the Raft he could get to.

The thing that stopped him was two videos, uploaded within minutes of each other by the Stark Industries official YouTube account exactly one week after the Battle of London. Within an hour, the videos, entitled “The Confession” and “The Explanation” had half a million views each. The news programs that day were filled with ten second soundbites and clips from them.

And the pendulum swung firmly in favor of Peter Parker and stuck there.

-

All told, neither video was terribly long or exciting. They were filmed in the law offices of Nelson, Murdock and Page, a simple wooden wall as the backdrop on a middle of the road camcorder that Foggy had fished out of a cabinet in his apartment.

Somehow, their simplicity added to their charm.

The Confession began with one Peter Parker, wearing the Spider-Man suit sans mask, staring into the camera. He took a deep breath, and then began.

“My name is Peter Parker, and this is my confession. When I was fourteen, I got bit by a radioactive spider on a class trip. A few days later, I realized things were different. My asthma was gone. I didn’t need glasses anymore. I went from a scrawny weakling to someone who could jump a dozen feet straight into the air, stick to walls, and catch a car coming at me at twenty miles per hour.”

“At first, I didn’t do anything with it. I thought, maybe life was just repaying me for all the bad luck that I had had over my life. Then my Uncle Ben died.” Peter paused here, gently rubbing his nose with the back of his head. “It was stupid, really. My Uncle Ben, he was a good person. Always wanted to look out for the good guy. So when a convenience store got held up by a guy with a gun while he was there, he couldn’t just stand by.”

“And he got shot for his troubles. I got home that night just before the policemen showed up to tell my aunt and I that he wasn’t ever coming home. And I knew, in that moment, that I could have stopped the robbery. Bad things happen, but when bad things happen and you don’t do anything about them, they become your fault.”

“Fast forward six months.” Peter smiled slightly here, thinking back to the impossibility of Tony Stark showing up in his living room. “Captain America is a fugitive. Tony Stark shows up at my apartment and asks me to come with him to Germany, to help take down the Rogue Avengers. I did my best to help.”

“Then, things went back to normal ish. You all know the next few years of history. I tried to help out the little guy, stopped a flying Vulture guy from stealing dangerous materials to make weapons, fought Thanos, and got dusted for my efforts.”

There was another pause here, a cut in the video as Peter had begun to find it difficult to breathe, remembering the impossible sense of impending doom as his healing factor struggled against the cosmic force that tried and succeeded to unmake him. When the video returns, Peter’s eyes are noticeably redder, but he seems to be ok.

“Then suddenly I was back. I fought alongside the heroes of that day against Thanos, and I was there when Tony Stark sacrificed himself for us. For all of us. That was… That was not a good time for me. It was like losing my Uncle Ben all over again.”

“Eight months pass. The world mourns. I help where I can, but when I had the chance to go on vacation, away from responsibilities and world ending threats, I took it. I didn’t even intend to take my suit with me to Europe, my aunt packed it.”

“Then, Venice.” Another long pause as Peter took in a deep breath. “Then Prague. I met this Earth’s Quentin Beck. Looking back now, I wonder how I missed that every word out of his mouth, every action he performed in front of me was done to manipulate me, to remind me just how much of a child I was in comparison to his persona. In a way, London is almost my fault. He manipulated me into giving me these.”

Peter tapped the glasses that hadn’t left their place hooked onto the collar of his shirt since he had gotten them back from Beck. “For the next Tony Stark, I trust you. That was the last message from Tony when I was given these. With these glasses, I had access to Tony’s whole AI system, his drones, his resources… And I didn’t want them. I was so eager to give up the responsibility and so willing to see Beck exactly as he portrayed himself that I didn’t even consider the consequences of giving it up.”

“I’m really lucky that fate let me realize what was going on before it was too late. Beck tried to kill me several times to keep his secret, and then tried to kill my friends as well. In the end, I stopped him, got the glasses back, and ended the threat, but he still had a trick up his sleeve.”

It was now that Peter finally locked eyes with the camera. “I’ve lived my life with a lot of deception, a lot of betrayal. I don’t want to live like that anymore. I kept my identity closely guarded to protect my family, the people I care about, but I know that trying to keep it a secret now, to try to sweep that revelation under the rug will just make people more likely to keep poking at it and never truly trust me again.”

“You know, I turn seventeen in a little over a month. I wanted this summer to be a quiet time. But we can’t always get what we want. So here’s the truth. No more lies, no more deceptions. The truth is,” Peter paused, not breaking eye contact with the camera, “I am Spider-Man. I am proud of what I have accomplished in the uniform, and I’d like to think that the world is a better place because of my efforts. And I’m going to keep going. I don’t want to be the next Iron Man, the next Tony Stark, because I’m happy with who I am. I’m Peter Parker. I’m your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman. And I’m not going to let an asshole in a mocap suit and his illusions take that away from me.”

“Thank you.”

The video ends there. Within two days, it was the most analyzed video on YouTube. There hadn’t been a good superhero unmasking since Tony Stark took credit for being Iron Man. Since then, heroic identities were all but common knowledge, they were celebrities.

And now Peter was too.

-

The Explanation was a video that wasn’t received as well. This was mostly because people weren’t really sure what to think. The general response to it was somewhere along the lines of, ‘man, the world is already so damn weird, this might as well be true.’

Later expert testimony from the likes of Doctor Strange, Scott Lang, and Hope Van Dyne on the existence of the multiverse helped to corroborate what was said in the video. But even then, Quentin Beck, interdimensional refugee and hopeful hero existed in an uncomfortable limbo between public enemy number one to one devoted section of the internet and an unknown quantity to the rest of the general public.

It was not a great place to be.

The Explanation began much like the Confession. Quentin Beck sat at a desk in the law firm of Nelson, Murdock, and Page. Unlike Peter, he wore civilian clothing, a soft powder blue t-shirt that seemed to have been chosen to make him seem as non-threatening as possible.

He began, “My name is Quentin Beck. Until a little over a week ago, I lived in another universe, another dimension. Like the Quentin Beck of your dimension claimed, I fought creatures called Elementals alongside others with similar talents. Then, after the worst fight of my life, I found myself here, in a universe where I was a criminal who had tried to ruin the life of a sixteen-year-old kid.”

Beck looked down at his hands at this point, his face composed into a perfect expression of contrition. “I want the world to know that that isn’t me. I can’t go home, I’ve learned that now. But maybe I can continue to do my job and help protect this Earth from threats.”

“Do not misunderstand me,” he continued, glancing up at the camera with a hard look in his eyes, “I am not asking for your permission. Whether you see me as hero or villain or something in between, I don’t care. I’ve been fighting threats to my home planet for almost twenty years. It’s what I trained for, it’s what I do. I’m going to continue doing my damn job here.”

“I’m not asking for you to believe me. I’m not even asking you to trust me, people of this Earth. I’m asking to be given a chance. I’m asking to be able to prove to you that I’m the good guy, that I can help protect your world alongside the heroes you’ve trusted to do so for over fifteen years.” Beck nodded, giving the camera one last look. “One chance. That’s all I’m asking.”

And so the video ended, the analysis videos were made, the soundbites were chosen, and the public opinion was still out over whether Quentin Beck could ever be a hero.

-

Doctor Strange showed up again that Saturday, books and a friend in tow. The books were histories, written in a language that none but he knew how to read anymore.

The friend was Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch.

It was a quiet summer day at the Stark cabin. Both Beck and Peter were still staying there – Beck because he literally had nowhere else to go (and wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t be arrested the second he poked his nose into a town with more than two people living in it), Peter because he still wasn’t comfortable with the idea of going home. The apartment he and May shared had been ransacked by reporters within the first few days of the original news clip airing, and he wasn’t comfortable with living in a home that wasn’t secure. As such, May had also moved into the Stark cabin for the time being.

By the time Strange arrived, Peter and Beck had reached an uneasy truce. Beck genuinely liked the kid. He saw a lot of himself at that age in Peter – still somewhat new to his powers, excited and happy to help people, desperately wanting to prove himself. Peter was a little more neutral in his feelings towards Beck. Every time he found himself feeling comfortable around the guy, whether it simply be making sandwiches side by side in the kitchen at lunch, or during a discussion of the multiverse that stretched far into the early hours of the morning, he could never let himself fully relax, let his guard down.

And Peter wasn’t sure he would ever be completely comfortable around the guy. Maybe that was ok. He still felt bad about the flashes of disappointment in Beck’s eyes whenever he would pull away when they got too close to actually being comfortable around eachother. He hoped that once Beck had gotten rid of the ‘little voice,’ as he referred to it, he could finally relax around the man and start building a real working relationship built on the truth, this time.

Which brings us back to why Doctor Stephen Strange and Wanda Maximoff stepped out of a portal onto the cabin’s front lawn. As chance would have it, Beck was already outside, running through a simple series of exercises to keep his magical skill sharp. It evoked a strange feeling of homesickness that he had been trying to squash ever since Strange had told him he would never be going back to his own dimension.

He finished his set of exercises, slowly releasing his hold on the threads of magic. “I was starting to think you weren’t going to come back, Doctor.”

Strange shrugged, holding up the book he had brought with him. “Took a little longer to find any record of someone with your condition than I was expecting, sue me.” He opened the book to a page he had bookmarked, and began summarizing his discovery. “As it turns out, your condition has occurred exactly three times within the history recorded here. Honestly it’s kind of impressive that it’s happened that many times, considering the coincidences that need to occur, but-”

“Strange.”

“Right, yes, where was I? Ok, so it’s happened three times. For it to occur, three requirements must be met. First, someone must die in such a way that they leave what this book refers to as an ‘imprint,’ a psychic flashburn, if you will, on the astral plane. Usually an imprint will fade within a week or two, which is where part two comes in – within that grace period, the doppelganger of that imprint from another universe must arrive to the imprint’s universe. This doppelganger must be a Sorcerer, and it is that Sorcerer’s drawing of power from the universe that allows the imprint to attach itself to the doppelganger. Finally, the Sorcerer must sleep deeply enough to reach a dream state, at which the imprint makes itself known.”

Beck nodded. That seemed reasonable enough. He hadn’t been aware of the presence of the other Mysterio in his mind until the dream, and the guy wouldn’t leave him alone after that.

 _I will have you know I am excellent company_.

“So what happened to the three cases in your book? Beck flicked a finger at Strange, trying to not get his hopes up too far.

“Ah.” Strange paused, not meeting Beck’s eyes. “Well, all three cases turned out differently. I think we can rule out the first case, since the guy went mad inside a week of acquiring his passenger and ended up killing himself. Since you passed the week mark, and seem relatively stable…” He trailed off, possibly rethinking that last comment.

“I don’t plan on killing myself. Next option.”

“Right. Option two – the passenger drove the doppelganger near to madness, causing him to eventually fulfil the terms of the passenger’s vengeance. The imprint finally left, but,” Strange paused again, “A lot of people died to fulfil that vengeance, and the doppelganger was placed in a secure, Mirror Dimension prison for the rest of his days.”

_And you’re too weak to do anything to the Parker boy anyway. Next option?_

“Next option?” Beck parroted, hoping that Strange would have some good news buried in there somewhere.

“Well, this one’s a little unclear, but Miss Maximoff here thinks she can help.” Strange gestured to the woman at his side. “The final account is somewhat unclear. It discusses the doppelganger ‘facing and defeating his demons,’ and coming out the other side whole again.”

Beck’s eyes quickly glanced between Strange and Wanda, trying to figure out what exactly that meant, as Wanda continued, “We want to interpret it literally. My skills do not just encompass physical manipulation of the real world, but mental manipulation as well. I believe that I would be able to draw out a physical manifestation of the imprint, allowing you to directly come into conflict and defeat it.”

It was an interesting thought. Of course there was the issue of, “What happens if I lose?”

Strange’s eyes grew hard and unflinching. “The imprint takes over your physical form, and we destroy you with extreme prejudice.”

“Good.”

-

The preparations were made in earnest over lunch. Beck was looking forward to the challenge, the experience of getting rid of the annoying voice in his head that kept pushing him towards actions completely against his morals.

 _Oh really, you know you’ll miss me_.

The only one that didn’t seem particularly excited about the prospect was Peter. Beck was surprised at this – if anyone should be excited to finally see the end of the man who had tried to ruin his life, he would expect it to be Peter.

But Peter was being uncharacteristically quiet. As Wanda and Strange finally left the table to head outside to get set up for the ritual they had devised, Beck slid down a chair or two to be next to Peter.

“Hey, kid, you ok?”

There was a pause. Peter finally looked up at Beck, shrugging. “I’m just… What happens if you lose but no one can tell? Beck was a good actor. With your powers, he could probably pretend to be you long enough to screw me over.”

_Kid has a point, that was exactly my plan._

Beck carefully placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “I’m not going to let that happen. I’ve fought people scarier than a guy with no powers. And, I thought about it. I really did consider the alternatives over whether I wanted to take the risk. You know what made me sure that this was the right choice?”

Peter shook his head, looking up at Beck as he continued, “You. I don’t want you to keep looking at me like you’re terrified that I’m faking it. I want the chance to really be a hero on this world, and not do it because the voice in my head wants me to. I want you, and by extension, your teammates, to trust me. And I can’t do that as long as there’s a question of whether it’s me or the bastard who tried to kill you talking.”

_All good points. Which means it will hurt more when I do, in fact, take your body and your life._

His points seemed to resonate with Peter, who finally nodded. “I trust you. Just, don’t lose, ok?”

-

The ritual wasn’t what Beck was expecting. One moment, he stood in the center of a glowing mandala of red and gold energy, the next, he stood back on the bridge that he had first encountered the other Beck on.

One Beck stood at one end, mocap suit on, gun in hand. The other stood in his armored finery, golden energy sparking at his fingertips.

Beck regarded Prime while carefully beginning to charge himself with energy. “I’m really not sure what you’re expecting to do here. Do you really expect to be able to take me out with that?”

Prime winked, holstering the pistol. “No. I expect to fight you on your own terms. I’ve spent a lot of time in your head, Beck. I know everything you know. Which means, I can do this.” Beck watched in growing horror as Prime reached out into thin air and drew a long sword of glowing golden energy from it. “Let’s dance.”

The battle that ensued wasn’t as evenly matched as Prime might have hoped. Despite living for a week in Beck’s head, Beck had years of experience channeling and manipulating energy. His shields flowed and changed into a sword as it was necessary, dodging and weaving around an opponent was second nature.

In fact, the fight took less than a minute before Beck’s sword found its way to Prime’s heart. Prime slumped, his hands going to the wound as blood began to seep from his mouth. Beck watched, coldly, dispassionately. This man was already dead, he reminded himself. He was just laying a vengeful spirit to rest.

There was still something deeply unnerving about watching your duplicate slowly die in front of you, though. Prime coughed, blood staining his lips as he managed to give one final gasp.

“I… still… win…”

And Beck was standing on the front lawn of the Stark cabin once again.

-

From the outside, Peter wasn’t sure what was going on. One minute, Beck had been standing in the center of a glowing circular rune in the grass, the next, his body slumped to the ground and both Strange and Wanda’s eyes began glowing gold and red respectively as they stared into nothing.

Whatever was going on in there, it was taking longer than Peter was comfortable with. Five minutes passed. Ten. Fifteen.

Then Beck sat up with a start from the ground, gasping for air. His eyes immediately locked with Peter’s.

“We won.”

-

Beck passed out pretty much immediately after awakening, but Strange and Wanda corroborated his story. As Peter sat next to the couch that he had carefully laid the man out on, he started for the first time to think about the future.

He finally had dealt with the repercussions of his Europe trip, but his life would never be the same. Could he even go back to school in the fall? He had two more years of high school, but how would his classmates react to learning physics alongside a literal superhero. Peter had dealt with being singled out for being a weak, awkward nerd for years. Would people tiptoe on eggshells around him now that they knew he could lift a bus?

And then there was the actual question of superheroic activities. With what was left of the Avengers scattered, retired, or dead, who was left if a threat really did arise? He had only named a handful of potential assets to Fury in Venice, but that really did beg the question.

Why was the best defense against massive Elemental monsters one magic user of suspect origin and a sixteen-year-old kid whose abilities couldn’t even directly damage the monsters? He knew Scott was busy with his family, and Clint was retired, but where was Sam? Where was Rhodey? Where was Wanda or T’Challa or Banner or Bucky?

The more Peter thought about it, the more he wondered if there was more to the message that Tony had left him with the glasses. Maybe he had been focusing on the wrong part of the message.

For the next Tony Stark, I trust you.

Tony had been the original, the first of the Avengers to try to protect the world in modern times. In a lot of ways, Peter was realizing now, he was the glue that held the Avengers together. He was their leader, their heart in ways that Peter didn’t think the other Avengers had ever really consciously known.

Was that what Tony had wanted from him? To use EDITH, find people with the potential to be heroes? Build a new team?

As Beck began to stir next to him, Peter knew he had to make a choice quickly.

Could he do it? He had EDITH. Through EDITH came access to all of Tony’s systems, and a surprisingly large chunk of cash to help him on his way. He knew he had the support of at least a few heroes. Beck was planning on getting into the hero business, and Peter was leery of letting Fury get his mitts on the man. In the days leading up to the release of Shuri’s analysis of Prime’s video, Peter had started talking with her, and he would bet a significant amount of money that if he asked her to get involved, she would

Ok, who else. Clint had been a little too happy to come out of retirement. Peter wasn’t exactly excited by the prospect of trying to get the older spy to follow his lead, but he would bet that if he asked Clint for help on a particular job, he would come.

Strange was a no, he seemed to busy with his own stuff, and that probably also went for Wanda. Peter had no idea how to get into contact with Sam or Rhodey or Banner or Bucky, and he suspected his own hero worship would get in the way of building any sort of team with them on it. The same went for Pepper, who was busy enough running Stark Industries and raising Morgan.

Scott Lang, Hope Van Dyne? Peter felt like they were under the same heading as Clint. Good to call in a pinch, and definitely earthbound due to family connections.

Matt Murdock was another option. Peter and Matt had built up a fairly strong relationship during the time that he spent in the law offices preparing his story, and he felt like the guy respected him. Matt was another definite maybe.

Now all he needed was a name. Calling themselves any variant of the Avengers felt wrong, to Peter. To be honest, he had never really liked the name in the first place. It implied that they were fully reactive, that they would wait until the damage was done until they would step forward and deal with the mess.

The Preventers was just a bad name, but he was spit balling here. Suddenly, the image of the glowing golden shields that Strange and Beck both used, and Peter knew he had a good idea. By the time that Beck had fully woken up and managed to sit up on the couch, Peter was halfway through his second sketch for the logo.

Beck carefully leaned over Peter’s shoulder. “Whatcha working on there.”

Peter turned back to him, the first real smile Beck had seen directed at him since he had arrived on this Earth. “Quentin Beck. How would you like to become a founding member of the Protectors Initiative?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teaser: All's Well that Ends Well
> 
> The idea takes off far faster than Peter was expecting. Ned and MJ are on board immediately, and several conversations between Pepper, May, Ned’s parents, and MJ’s parents, and a suite of state-of-the-art monitors and computers later, Ned’s dream of being The Man in the Chair is realized. MJ pretends to not be excited, but Peter keeps the photo that Ned sent him of her their first night acting as mission control as his phone background for a while.
> 
> It’s not even that good of a picture, to be honest. MJ is backlit by monitors, a heavy set of headphones on, her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. And yet that little smile on her face as she talks into the mic to Peter makes him so happy.


	9. All's Well That Ends Well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is the end! Thank you for sticking with me through this. Like I’ve been saying, there’s a lot more coming, so stay tuned to this series. 
> 
> Wednesday I’ll post the “DVD extras” which has some notes on how Beck’s earth worked, a deleted scene, and a preview of the next long work in this series, as well as the first of the shorter oneshots in this series (Civilian Life).

The idea takes off far faster than Peter was expecting. Ned and MJ are on board immediately, and several conversations between Pepper, May, Ned’s parents, and MJ’s parents, and a suite of state-of-the-art monitors and computers later, Ned’s dream of being The Man in the Chair is realized. MJ pretends to not be excited, but Peter keeps the photo that Ned sent him of her their first night acting as mission control as his phone background for a while.

It’s not even that good of a picture, to be honest. MJ is backlit by monitors, a heavy set of headphones on, her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. And yet that little smile on her face as she talks into the mike to Peter makes him so happy.

Shuri is also on board. It takes a while for the two of them to finally coordinate a time to speak over discord due to the time differential, but when they finally do, they speak for over three hours. Peter hasn’t had a chance to speak with someone with the same enthusiasm for tinkering with a genius level intellect since Tony, and Peter knows that if it came to a battle of wits, Shuri would defeat him nine times out of ten. The best thing that comes out of their conversation is an invitation to visit her in Wakanda with his friends – officially it would be to celebrate his birthday, but Shuri suggests that they would be able to spend time in her lab as well.

Of the adults that Peter had considered inviting, only Beck really seemed interested in participating in a regular patrol schedule. Matt was… Matt was the Devil of Hell’s kitchen, and didn’t seem particularly interested in expanding his patrol area. There was also the issue there, of course, of transportation. It made sense for Matt to focus on his corner of the city, considering he couldn’t get from point A to point B as quickly as Beck or Peter could.

And so things slowly went back to something approaching normal.

-

Peter’s first day in New York City was weird. Instead of moving back into the old apartment, Peter and May would be living in one formerly owned by Stark Industries, now owned by them (one final gift from Pepper before May had protested that she was doing too much). The building was only a block or two away from their old place, but higher security. This would ensure that no reporters looking for a scoop would be able to get their claws into Peter or May the way they could have originally.

That being said, Peter found that it was much easier to avoid the press than he had been expecting. A hat and otherwise normal clothes and no one looked twice at a sixteen-year-old out and about in the middle of the summer. He knew school would be a different story – and he had decided on going back to school, rather than being homeschooled or switching schools under a different name – but that was a problem for future him.

The new apartment was amazing. It took come getting used to, the larger space, the generally nicer quality of the apartment in general, but there were certain extremely nice features. The first, and most useful to Peter, was a balcony attached to both his room and the main family area which would make getting in and out of the building as Spider-Man much easier than usual.

Speaking of being Spider-Man, there were a number of other nice amenities, including an extra room stocked with all the materials he needed to make his web fluid, a cabinet in the bathroom stocked almost to the level of an infirmary with first aid supplies, and even a production cylinder to allow him to tinker with and make new suits.

May, of course, was excited as well. The apartment was beautiful, had a hookup to FRIDAY so she could monitor Peter on patrol, and the majority of her furniture from the old apartment had made it back in. The couch and chairs and table and bed that she had had since she married Ben had all made it to the new apartment, and somehow it managed to transform what might have been an offputtingly unfamiliar place feel like home.

-

Their first night back, it’s like old times. Ned and MJ come over and May orders pizza and the four of them watch old sci-fi movies and make fun of them like nothing has changed.

And if they need to pause the movie for a few minutes as Peter has to collect himself in the face of an alien landscape looking a little bit too much like Titan, or when a suddenly loud sound from the television spooks him badly enough that he ends up stuck to the ceiling for five minutes before he can finally relax enough to come down and be surrounded by his friends and family, that’s ok. They’re all coping.

Even Ned and MJ are feeling the after effects of the fight on the bridge. For Ned, it was one thing to be the guy in the chair during Peter’s fight with the Vulture, or to look up in the sky and see a spaceship leave and know your friend is on it, and quite another to be caught in the middle of a drone attack and know that not only is your best friend in imminent danger, but you are too.

For MJ, who’d only been in the know at the time of the bridge attack for a day or two, it was something else entirely. It was knowing that all of a sudden you were in imminent mortal danger because your boyfriend was a hero and a good person. Then came the day they got back, and…

If MJ and Ned stayed a little closer to Peter that night than normal personal space rules would dictate, it was only because they were holding themselves back from hugging him and never letting him go.

-

The life of Quentin Beck, on the other hand, was a little weird. He experienced pretty much the same level of fame as Peter – the occasional person would recognize him on the street, and it was a tossup between whether that person would want a selfie and an autograph, or hiss ‘murderer’ under their breath as they walked by.

Beck was kind of used to the first one, though. As one of the last few Sorcerers in the public eye on his world, it wasn’t uncommon for people to recognize him on the streets. The anger directed at him was new, though, and in those moments alone in his new room in the New York Sanctum, he would admit that it was starting to wear on him.

It was all starting to wear on him to be honest. After living for nearly twenty years constantly ready for a fight, and even longer than that expecting disaster to strike at any moment, suddenly living in a city that had been destroyed twelve years ago for him and fighting low level crime in his spare time was… weird.

And although he would never admit it to anyone, he desperately missed home. He missed flying alongside a dozen other Sorcerers in a life-or-death fight, he missed the comradery of training and living with people who shared the exact same goals as him.

He had to just keep telling himself that there was no way back, that this was the way that things were now. His Earth was safe now, the Elementals had been destroyed. People would rebuild, life would go on. He hoped that people missed him as much as he missed them, but he knew that wasn’t the case. Sorcerers on his world were used to dealing with grief. Mourning was like breathing – you did it unconsciously, let the memory of the people you lost never stray far from the back of your mind, but you didn’t spend every second of every day wallowing in it. There’s no time for that.

Unfortunately, these days, Beck seemed to have nothing but time. The first few weeks he spent familiarizing himself with the layout of the city, learning how to get from point A to point B using mundane forms of transportation. There was something deeply gratifying about learning that despite the fact that this city had seen its own share of devastation in its past, it was always rebuilding and moving forward.

At first, he kept his distance from the Parker kid. It seemed fair to let Peter spend his time with his friends, his family, rather than Beck. Their patrols at night were fairly quiet to begin, Ned calling in disturbances picked up by EDITH’s surveillance and directing Peter and Beck to their destinations.

At least, Beck tried to avoid Peter until the kid called him on it.

-

It was a warm night at the end of July. Peter had been talking non-stop over the comms while they waited for their next target about a trip he was taking to a place called Wakanda (Beck had heard about it in passing while he caught up on this world’s pop culture from the last sixty years) with his friends on his birthday.

The two paused for a moment at the top of a building to take a breather, have a drink. Since they had started keeping a regular patrol schedule, Peter and Beck had set up a series of caches on roofs across the city with things like basic first aid supplies, snacks, and bottles of water to use while they were out.

It didn’t take Peter’s spider sense to know that Beck had been avoiding him. Despite an open invitation to join Team Parker on their movie nights, Beck still hadn’t, citing the need to have someone out on patrol while Peter was taking a break. Peter still hadn’t figured out how to bring up the fact that Beck never took a night off.

As Beck hovered at the edge of the roof, finally sitting down and contemplating the skyline, Peter had a flashback to that night in Prague as he dropped down next to Beck, sitting cross-legged on the edge of the roof.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” It wasn’t a question. Peter didn’t even look over at Beck, instead looking out over the city.

Beck contemplated the water bottle in his hand, taking a drink instead of answering right away. “I haven’t been avoiding you.”

“You have.”

“No, I’ve been giving you your space.” Beck looked over at Peter, whose sense of déjà vu was growing even stronger. Apart from the background, and the fact that both of them were in costume, this could have been a month ago, with Beck pretending to be his friend. “I know what you went through with this world’s Beck. You have your friends, your family back. I don’t want to be the thing that drags you back into some of the worst few days of your life.”

Ok, that was a fair point. It hadn’t happened recently, but the first few times they had gone out on patrol together Peter had accidentally webbed Beck instead of the bad guy, working on instinct instead of noting the golden magic and subtle costume changes.

Beck had offered to try to change his costume, but it turned out that the integration of magic channeling technology into his suit was so different from anything Peter had seen before, or anything that was in Tony’s notes that he really had no idea where to start on designing or building a new one.

So the fishbowl stayed. Secretly, Beck had been kind of glad about that – it was his last marker of who he was, who he had trained to become, and while it sucked that Peter had such an adverse reaction it would almost be like an Iron Man suit that didn’t match the iconography that Tony had built up over the years.

Except for Beck, it wasn’t almost twenty years of history, it was over seventy years of history. This is just what Sorcerers look like to him. And as much as he appreciated the aesthetic of what Peter’s Earth’s Sorcerers wore, it didn’t come in nanite form and it didn’t help him amplify his magic and most importantly when fighting street level crime, it didn’t block bullets.

But Peter let out a long breath. “You’re not. You ever hear of something called exposure therapy?”

Beck had not, and Peter continued, “Ok, so remember at the beginning how I was super distrustful of you and would occasionally forget that we were on the same side in fights?”

Beck very much did, and had vehemently expressed just how difficult it was to get the webbing glue out of the nanites of his armor numerous times. “So, the idea is that if you have a phobia of something, one way to try to cure it is to expose yourself to it in safe, controlled environments. Any lingering fear I have of you is a phobia, because it’s without basis. I know you’re not going to hurt me. But working with you on patrol is a high stress, definitely unsafe and uncontrolled environment.”

Ok, that Beck understood and added, “Pizza night on the other hand…”

“Yeah, pizza night, especially if you leave your armor at the door, is a safe, controlled environment. Plus, when you told me your Earth didn’t have Star Wars I just about cried, man.” That managed to get a chuckle out of Beck. “So, come to the next pizza night. We’ll both be there, this city’s police department can earn their pay for one night without us. We’ll watch Episode IV. I’m sure you’ll love it.”

“Wait, Episode IV? Shouldn’t we start at the beginning?” Beck finished his water, placing it back in the cache. “Unless there’s a joke or something there that I don’t get.”

“You’ll see.” Peter stood up, placing a hand on Beck’s shoulder. “Once you see it you’ll understand. Oh,” he continued as he pulled his mask back on and got ready to jump off the building, “You’re invited to my birthday party.”

Any response to that that Beck might have had was drowned out by Peter’s whoop of glee as he fell, thwipping out a line of webbing at the last moment and letting his momentum carry him. Beck stood there for a moment before activating his helmet, golden magic surrounding him as he jumped off to follow Peter.

-

Things got better after that night. Movie night was a success, and while Star Wars didn’t exist on Beck’s Earth it turned out that it had its own series of cult classics. Some sounded suspiciously similar to ones that Peter was familiar with – an action movie where the Earth had built giant robots to fight the Elementals instead of training Sorcerers was clearly their equivalent of Pacific Rim, while a television series about the exploration of space after the defeat of Elementals could have rivaled Star Trek if someone squinted hard enough.

The one Peter was most excited about was a workplace comedy about Sorcerers and their support staff that seemed to embody the spirit of Brooklyn 99, even down to the character tropes of the main cast. The next movie night, Beck had come prepared. His suit had always housed a fairly decently sized database, and between certain episodes that he actually had downloaded on it to watch in between deployments and episode summaries that Beck had done his best to bring to life with a scaled down version of the illusion tech that his doppelganger had perfected, Team Parker + Beck got through half a dozen episodes of both Battalion 9 and Brooklyn 99, comparing the plots and laughing about the unintended coincidences until the wee hours of the morning.

Then came the group chat. Its name fluctuated for a week until it finally settled on “Unqualified Heroes,” and while it had originally been only Ned, Peter, and MJ, the circle quickly expanded to include Shuri and Beck. The most surprising addition to the chat was Matt, who quickly proved himself able to snark with the best of them.

Yes, things were looking up for Peter Parker. Maybe the old Parker luck wouldn’t ruin this new family he was building for himself.

-

Meanwhile at the Avengers compound in upstate New York in the dead of night, a spaceship landed. The hatch hissed open, and two figures stepped out.

For a moment, there were two Nick Furys and two Maria Hills. In this case, however, it wasn’t the result of interdimensional duplicates, it was the result of Skrull shapeshifting. The duplication ended quickly as Talos and Soren finally dropped the disguise.

“So, I come all the way back here from a much needed vacation, and you finally get around to messaging me ‘It’s under control now, sorry for bothering you?’ Things sounded pretty serious when you called?” While the natural state of Nick Fury was best described as serious for someone being kind, and generally vaguely angry by someone being less kind, even someone trying to be kind would definitely describe him as angry here.

“Yeah, ah, about that.” Talos rubbed the back of his neck, wondering where to begin. “So, turns out the first Beck-”

“The _first_ Beck?” Hill cut in, arms crossed over her chest as she glanced between Talos and Fury. “What do you mean, the _first_ Beck?”

“Well, the first Beck came to us after an attack in Mexico. Claimed to be an interdimensional refugee and as you might imagine that story resonated with Soren and I and he really was good at his job,” Talos continued, and Fury pinched the bridge of his nose. He knew that there would be some speedbumps when he asked Talos and Soren to impersonate Hill and him, but he hadn’t expected something like this to happen.

“Then I tried to get the Parker kid on the phone, like you said, get him working under an experienced hero, and things were going great for a bit. Then it turns out that Beck was a disgruntled Stark Industries employee with a crew of similar people who were using illusion tech to fake it all. And then,” Talos gestured to emphasize the next part, “He outed Parker as Spider-Man on international news.”

“Yeah, we got all that.” Fury had a headache now, gesturing for Talos to finish as they walked inside the Compound.

“Well, that’s when things start to get interesting. You see, another Beck shows up on the planet. Claims to actually be from another dimension, and has the magic to back it up. The guy helps the Parker kid with the issue he was having with the ramifications of the first Beck, takes down the first Beck’s crew, and somehow even manages to get public opinion on his side even though evil Beck was a bit of a bastard.” Talos held the door as they walked inside, heading to the conference room. “Now he’s running patrols in New York City alongside Spider-Man like he’s some kind of vigilante.”

“Have either of them signed the Accords?” Hill was the last one through the door, but was already going through files on her tablet to figure out what needed to be done to salvage the situation.

“No.” Talos shook his head. “Ross was forced to back off after public sentiment was turned squarely in favor of the actions Spider-Man took during the fights against Beck. Forensic reconstructions show that nearly all the damage was done as a result of Beck’s illusion technology, and there was almost no property damage directly done by Spider-Man. In the wake of that, there was none of the anti-heroic public sentiment surrounding the Rogue Avengers that lead up to the confrontation in Berlin, and Ross wasn’t willing to push his luck in trying to arrest heroes again. Not after the defeat of Thanos.”

That… All made an annoying amount of sense, Fury had to admit. “And you said that both of them are living in New York City?”

Soren finally spoke, flicking data off her tablet and onto the main screen. “Beck has taken up residence in the New York City Sanctum, and is currently being watched by Doctor Strange for any villainous tendencies. Parker and his aunt moved into an apartment previously owned by Stark Industries.”

“If I may, the interesting thing that they’ve been doing isn’t patrolling. Parker is trying to put together a new team to take over where the Avengers left off. It didn’t escape his notice that he was the only hero that was brought in to deal with the Elementals beyond Beck, and with the technology Stark left behind, I really think that he could succeed in it.” Talos began bringing up profiles. “So far he has recruited his school friends Edward Leeds and Michelle Jones, has gotten into contact with Princess Shuri of Wakanda, runs patrols frequently with both Quentin Beck and the vigilante known as Daredevil, and has tentative alliances of support with Clint Barton, Scott Lang, and Hope Van Dyne. And I suspect he is only getting started.”

Talos waited for some sort of negative response, but Fury only let out a low chuckle. “If anyone could build a new team, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Parker. That kid has a way about him – you know he’s gonna run headfirst into danger, and the only way to keep him safe is to run with him.” Fury nodded, continuing to read the fine details of Talos and Soren’s report. “We’ll keep an eye on him, step in if it’s needed. But for now,” Fury looked up, giving the two Skrulls a nod, “We’ll see what the kid can do.”


	10. DVD Extras

Thanks for sticking with me through all of that 40k words of nonsense. Originally this chapter would have been another post credits tag, but I realized as I was planning out the other fics I wanted for this universe that tag would have given some major spoilers for things three or four fics down the road.

So instead, to keep the promise of another chapter, I decided to post the following. This is the original first part of Chapter 5 (Beck’s dream) before I rewrote it to introduce the FFH Beck ghost plot. I really liked the scene, but it didn’t fit with where the story I wanted to tell was going. The scene introducing Beck’s ghost would have take place later, after he got the glasses back but saw the other Beck’s reflection instead of his own and heard the voice in his head a bit. After writing that way for a bit I couldn’t find a good place to fit in the actual dream sequence, so things got moved around and the original dream got cut, to my sadness.

I’ve also included my notes on how the Sorcerer and Enhanced battalions work in Beck’s world. This was originally notes to go into the conversation between Beck, Peter, Hope, and Scott in Chapter 4, but I didn’t want to give too much exposition there to drag down the pacing of the plot.

One other quick note re: dates. The snap never happened on Beck’s Earth, as the Elemental threat took the place of the Infinity Saga there. Without any official info on whether Prime was snapped or not, and how old Beck is supposed to be, I’m going to go off of the actor’s age and say that Prime never got snapped, which would push Beck’s birthdate up a few years to 1985, meaning his hometown was destroyed in 2001, and he finished his training in 2005. As discussed in a little bit, this does mean that the Battalions were on the decline before he ever really became a full Sorcerer, and never fought Air or Earth.

-

Beck’s Dream

-

It was all just like it used to be. Beck walked alongside the cracks pavement of the sidewalk leading from Marrsdale High School, through the center of the one streetlight town, to the front door of his childhood house.

The only detail that was different was Beck. He looked down at himself in growing horror as some part of his brain remembered exactly what was going to happen, why he was dressed in a t-shirt emblazoned with the crest of the Battalion of Sorcerers, why he had a backpack filled with books and notebooks slung over one shoulder. The reason why he was clean shaven, why his hair was the mess than any sixteen-year-old who cared more about becoming a Sorcerer than looking halfway presentable would be.

He looked up at the horizon, and sure enough, there it was: the dust storm, sweeping across the prairie and heading directly towards the little town of Marrsdale, Kansas.

Beck knew, logically, that he was dreaming. That anything he accomplished here in the dream world wouldn’t matter, that any lives he saved today in this dream world wouldn’t really be safe. That this would end just like every one of the dozens of times he had had this dream – waking up, throat raw from screaming, and his family and friends still dead.

The illogical, emotional part of his brain didn’t care. That part of his brain would do anything to save his family, his friends, even if it wouldn’t end up being real.

Just like he had in real life, the dream version of Beck fumbled in his backpack and pulled out his cell phone- a massive, blocky thing – pulled up the antenna, and frantically dialed the Elemental Emergency number.

And just like there had been in real life, Beck got no response. A quick glance at the horizon revealed that the dust storm that heralded Air’s arrival was much closer, blocking out cell reception and stopping any chance of immediate response.

Unlike in real life, however, Beck stood in the center of main street, staring defiantly at the approaching storm like only a sixteen-year-old with a boundless sense of self importance and no sense of mortality could. Of course, being in the body of his younger self meant no armor. No armor meant no help channeling magic.

No help channeling magic and his younger self’s general inexperience in general that meant even as he perfectly ran through the series of spells that would arm and armor him for combat, nothing happened but a handful of golden sparks gently trickling out of his fingertips.

Which meant that just like every other time he had had this dream, he was tossed aside by Air as it swept into the town square, obliterating every building it passed.

Beck closed his eyes, curling up into a ball as he was tossed into the air. Even in the dream, being slammed into the rubble that had used to be the town’s general store hurt enough to throw him for a loop, more debris slamming down him, caging him in.

Magic finally surrounded him. Too little too late, just like it had been twenty years prior. The flickering golden shield cocooned the young Beck as lives and houses were ripped apart around him.

This was always the worst part of the dream. The waiting. The half hour before the Sorcerers of the Fifth Battalion showed up, the half hour spent as they fought the Elemental, finally sending it retreating into the horizon.

The half hour before he was dug out of the wreckage of a town whose population of two hundred and fifty had been reduced to one.

This was usually when Beck woke up, and he would in a few moments. The dream lasted just long enough for him to catch sight of a figure in the background, standing by a pile of rubble, watching him. A man with a very familiar face, in a very familiar costume.

Beck locked eyes with the specter of his older self just before the dream ended as it always did, with him sitting bolt upright on his bed – although in this case it was a couch, magic finally springing to life at his fingertips.

-

The History of the Battalions

-

The first Elemental, Water, appeared on Beck’s Earth in 1952, and managed to grow to a size capable of wiping out Australia, which it managed to do in a four day battle before the combined forces of the Sorcerers alive on Beck’s Earth at the time managed to diminish it enough before it retreated into the ocean. After Earth showed up two years later and caused serious damage in India, the governments of the world and the Sorcerer Supreme at the time came together to form the first Battalion of Sorcerers, which at the time consisted of seven elite squads of eleven Sorcerers each, made up of the most capable combat-focused Sorcerers left alive after the battles of Australia and Bangalore. At the height of the Battalions’ strength, they consisted of fourteen Battalions, each still keeping the seven squads/eleven Sorcerers makeup. However, at this point the support staff for each Battalion had expanded significantly from a few dozen military representatives, medics, and technology officers who would help to pinpoint Elemental attacks to nearly three hundred non-Sorcerer staff members for each Battalion.

While the Sorcerers would be the ones actually fighting the Elementals, as it was discovered fairly early on that the only thing that could combat magic was magic, the Enhanced Battalions were founded in the mid nineties alongside the height of the Sorcerer Battalions. The Enhanced, then consisting mostly of the results of genetic modification in an attempt to recreate the Super Soldier Serum, would eventually expand to include two Battalions in the early 2000’s of more familiar superheroic faces including Iron Man, the Hulk, Extremis soldiers, and the newly recovered Captain America.

The Enhanced would run side operations to minimize structural damage and civilian casualties, and were quickly nicknamed “The Cleanup Crew” due to their reputation as the ones who would come in in the wake of an Elemental attack and aid in search and rescue and cleanup operations.

By the late 2000’s, however, the need for the Battalions was dropping off. Elemental attacks were far less frequent thanks to the defeat of Water in 1985, and Air in 1996. The Battle of New York City and the apparent defeat of Fire there significantly decreased the need for the Battalions, and most Sorcerers returned to the more contemplative life that their kind had enjoyed before the Elemental threat. By the time of the defeat of Earth in 2021, only one Enhanced Battalion remained with only three squads and a skeleton crew of support staff, and two full Sorcerer Battalions remained at full strength.

These two Sorcerer Battalions were the Fifth and Seventh Battalions, the latter of which Beck had been assigned to since the end of his training. Both were in the process of beginning to disband for good after no Elemental attacks for almost three years in 2024, but luckily were able to reform in time to deal with the attack of Fire in Prague.

The actual death of Fire energized the remaining remnants of the other Elementals that had been defeated over the year, combining them into the Elemental Conflux that attacked London. Due to heavy losses in Prague and a lack of preparation in London, by the end of the fight in London the 154 Sorcerers that went into battle in Prague had been reduced to less than thirty at the end of the day in London.

Although Beck doesn’t know this, the defeat of the Conflux in London did mark the official end of the Elemental threat. His world would face other challenges in the years to come, but the Elementals would no longer ravage his world.

-

The Organization of Battalions

-

Ok, so honestly this is all just trivia, it almost certainly will never actually be relevant in any story to come but it’s interesting.

As mentioned, the Sorcerer Battalions are made up of seven squads of seven Sorcerers each. The Squads are officially named after the colors of the rainbow – Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet, with the colors of the capes of each squad matching their squad names. This would mean that Beck would have been in Red Squad.

The Red Squad of each Battalion was also known as the Star Squad. This is the squad that the most talented fighters would be put on. It would also be the squad that would receive things like experimental armor. Star Squad would also be the group of Sorcerers that would do things like official interviews after battles, and was generally considered to be the face of each Battalion.

While the members of Star Squad held the highest rank within each Battalion, the ranking would then go on down the rainbow. There are some nuances to this, of course. The leader of Purple Squad would outrank a lower numbered Sorcerer on, say, Blue Squad, but the lowest ranked member of Star Squad would still outrank the leader of Green Squad.

Beyond the color of capes, identities and ranks could be easily determined in the field by the patterns on the capes. The leader of each squad would wear a solid colored cape of their squad color, with each successive person on the squad wearing a cape that would become more and more either solid black or white. As Beck’s cape has only a very subtle pattern on it based on stills from Far From Home, this would make our Beck most likely the second in command of his Squadron, putting him pretty highly ranked in his squad.

The patterns wouldn’t just serve as identification of rank, they could also be used to identify the person, as each cape would look different. This meant that when multiple Battalions would work together, it would still be possible to tell the difference between the eighth in command of the Fifth Battalion’s Blue Squadron from their counterpart in the Seventh Battalion.

What all this comes down to mean is that Beck is a fairly powerful Sorcerer by his home dimension’s metrics, which also translates into him being fairly powerful here. While his magic is pretty much only capable of feats that translate into combat, rather than the wider range of magic that Earth-199999 Sorcerers are capable of, he might actually be capable of standing up to Strange in a wizards’ duel.

Not that he’d want to.

But he could.

-

And one last thing: A teaser for the next major work in the series, The Birthday Party

-

It was August. The hype surrounding Peter as Spider-Man had died down much faster than Peter had expected – maybe it was the fact that superheroes having public identities had always been the norm. Or maybe it was Pepper Potts’ arm of rabid lawyers ready to destroy anyone who tried to go after Peter. He was, after all, still a minor, and entitled to a certain amount of privacy.

What this meant for Peter, though, was that he could go out during the day wearing the patented Avengers’ disguise of a hat and sunglasses and go about his normal life with minimal interference from the general public.

Even the handful of powered criminals he had fought over the past few years seemed unwilling to go after him directly. Fights on patrol were just as dangerous and near deadly as they always had been, but no one since Mysterio seemed willing to go after Peter Parker or his loved ones directly. Apparently, there were lines that they wouldn’t cross. Not yet, anyway.

His fame did lead to some odd moments of recognition, however. Like now, for instance, as Team Parker stood in line in the Newark airport, waiting to go through security. Of the whole group, however, it was Beck that seemed the most nervous and twitchy.

He had met the rest of the group of May, Peter, MJ, and Ned at the entrance to the airport, and his bad mood seemed to have started when his luggage was deemed too oversized to be carried on, and as such, would have to be checked. This led to the moment twenty minutes later as they stood in line for the TSA screening when Beck realized that he had left his sling ring in his luggage.

This, combined with unfamiliar security procedures, the number of odd looks the group as a whole was receiving as the other people in line realized they were standing near both Spider-Man and Mysterio, and an unfamiliar mode of travel on the horizon for Beck meant that he was nervous, twitchy, and not at all looking forward to an almost fifteen hour flight, even if it would be in relative luxury on a Stark Industries jet.

Ned, MJ, and May were already through security when it happened. The guard took Peter’s passport and boarding pass, looked at it, then looked back to Peter. “You that Spider-Kid from YouTube?”

“Me? Nah.” Peter tried to grab his paperwork back, catching Beck’s eye as he did.

Beck looked like he was going to start laughing, but kept a serious look on his face as the guard called out, “Hey Bill! It’s the Spider-Kid!”

Great. Now everyone’s looking. Peter was turning bright red, and from the other side of the security terminal May and the others were starting to laugh. It definitely got the attention of the crowd.

Of course, Beck couldn’t avoid attention himself. As soon as the fourth guard came over to investigate the growing disturbance and tried to keep the line going by looking at Beck’s paperwork, the cries of “It’s Spider-Man!” became “It’s Spider-Man and Mysterio!”

At that point there wasn’t much they could do. Autographs were signed, pictures were taken, and then the five of them had to sprint across the airport to get to where their plane was.


End file.
